September 24, 2007
Afghanistan Unveiled will be aired on ABC Australia’s Four Corner Investigative series on 11.35 pm Tuesday 25 September; also on ABC2 at 9.30 pm Wednesday and 8 am Thursday.
Living in reel time - dawn.com
September 23, 2007
By Madeeha Syed
“Travelling to conflict-riddled countries has made me more of a patriot because it made me realise that we have something that we really need to work to make better. I’ve seen what happens when things fall apart. And believe me, we do not want that to happen to us,†says Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy
A Pakistani documentary-maker based in Karachi, Paris, New York and Canada, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy has won accolades from all over the world — the most notable being the Livingston Award for journalism and being the only non-American so far to have received it. She is also one of the 25 people picked out to represent 25 years of the Livingston Awards.
Having made documentaries and travelled to places such as South Africa, Manila (Philippines) and Afghanistan, and having made a locally-controversial documentary out of Pakistan titled Reinventing the Taliban, Sharmeen isn’t one to sit back when there is a story at hand or to get intimidated by the material she uncovers. Independent, straightforward and to-the-point with a visibly pragmatic side to her, one of the things that becomes apparent when meeting her in person is that she does not have a different camera personality — she is exactly the way she is in real life, in her mannerisms and way of talking and addressing issues, as she is on camera.
Recently, with the formation of the Citizens’ Archive of Pakistan (CAP) with a view of archiving and communicating Pakistan’s history and heritage, the group went on to organise the Shanaakht Festival held around Pakistans Independence Day. Talks about Partition, photography and art exhibitions and documentaries based on the theme of Partition were shown to the public totally free of cost. In between dealing with the festival’s post-event issues and going on yet another travelling stint abroad, Images managed to garner an interview with the documentary-maker bent on uncovering real-world issues.
Q: Your latest documentary, Lifting the Veil, that went on air recently focuses predominantly on the lives of Afghan women six years after their so-called liberation. How long did it take to make the documentary?
SOC: Lifting the Veil has got three names — it was released by Channel 4 with the name of Afghanistan Unveiled, CNN is releasing it as Lifting the Veil and my name for it is The Promise. The festival version is called the latter. I travelled from Kabul to Herat to Tahar, Talakand… basically from the capital to the west and up towards the north and north-east to villages, towns, cities to see what’s happened to the women there.
I travelled through Afghanistan for five weeks. It was one of the most fascinating journeys that I have ever undertaken. Partly because I didn’t have any language trouble, almost everyone spoke Urdu and because the country is spectacularly beautiful. It’s very sad to see such stark beauty contrasted against such stark poverty and destruction.
Q: Was it safe travelling in Afghanistan for a woman where the effects of Taliban rule and the recent war on terrorism are still predominant?
SOC: I’ve worked in conflict zones for a long time now and safety is a very relative thing. Are you safe in Karachi? You could be shot outside your own home here, your car could be hijacked, you could be robbed. Similarly, you could be robbed in Rio de Janeiro or the slums that I worked in in South Africa.
I think that safety is a very relative term and when I go into dangerous situations I do not think about whether I’m safe. I think about whether the circumstances that I’m in require me to be more cautionary or take precautions.
Q: Going armed with a camera to an individual or a group to talk to them about whatever situation they are in can be very intimidating for them. How do you get people to open up?
SOC: I start a film after I research it for about two months before I actually go in and film it. During that period I make a lot of connections with the people in that country through NGOs, individuals who I would have met during the course of my travels and basically people who connect me to others. Once I’ve built a relationship with them, they then introduce me to ordinary people in that country and when they filter, it becomes easier for those people to trust me.
Also, people are not hesitant to speak to me because of the fact that I’m a woman and I come from a third-world country myself. I’m able to relate to many of their issues because I see it happening in my own country. A lot of people find me easier to talk to than, for example, a western journalist who they can’t relate to on any level.
For example, while working in the slums in South Africa or in the Philippines, I could tell them: ‘Look, I’ve seen this. I’ve seen this poverty, I’ve seen this discrimination, I’ve see this class of society because I’ve grown up in one’. Even though those countries are across the planet or in another hemisphere, I am able to connect with those people and they realise that when they speak to me, it’s not that I am walking through the slums wearing my D&G top or something. I am there in the mud with them doing the things that I should be doing.
Q: You have been accused of representing Pakistan in a negative light in your documentary, Reinventing the Taliban. Why?
SOC: I am very straightforward about what I do. I am not Pakistan’s PR agent. I am a journalist. And just because I am one of the few journalists who work for international television and have access to stories in Pakistan does not mean that I do not uncover those stories. Some people may think that I am not a patriot, but I believe that you’re a patriot if you actually point out the faults in your country so that these can be rectified. A lot of people feel that because I have exposure, because I am well-known per say in the international community, that I should only present stories that are favorable to Pakistan.
Quite honestly, I present a very balanced view. In Reinventing the Taliban, I showed the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) area of Pakistan which was becoming increasingly radical at the time. I did the film in 2003 when the radical elements were not there but I predicted that in the next three years, Pakistan will face a civil war, where you will have Islamists battling the moderates. And what is happening today? What is Lal Masjid all about? If you watch Reinventing the Taliban you will think that I made it now. But I made it when the tribal belt of Pakistan was not as volatile as it is right now. The areas that I travelled to and the kind of people that I met in 2002-2003, I could never do now because it is extremely difficult to do so.
And of course that’s going to be a problem in this country and now everyone talks about it — its common drawing room conversation. In 2002-03 it wasn’t. And that’s why people didn’t like it and I think in some way I was a visionary. At least I was able to put forward the fact that I saw what was happening to my own country and it pained me to see it. I wanted other people to wake up and see that just because they live in your comfortable homes, in a large city, and no one is threatening the schools of their daughters and no one is threatening their wives.
Let’s face it. How many people are socially and politically active in this society? If you live in Karachi, the tribal belt seems so far away and so unknown to many of us. It’s not like we frequent that area or that we even know about it. How many of us have been to that part of Pakistan to know what’s happening over there? There is detachment because people don’t really care.
Q: As a journalist, you’re taught that your job is to observe and not become a part of the observed. After having travelled and covered issues in conflict zones extensively, is it difficult for you not to get involved?
SOC: I’ve had a couple of circumstances where I’ve been very involved with people’s lives. I did a film in 2005 about a young man who stopped a suicide bomber, his name was Ghufraan Haider. He stopped a suicide bomber in Karachi at the mosque near the former KFC outlet in Karachis Gulshan-i-Iqbal area. He was very hurt and he comes from a very poor family. He sustained a lot of injuries, when he partially recovered, he was a key witness against the suicide bombers and based on his testimony, they (the bombers) got the death penalty. He was threatened openly in court and our government could not protect him. He fled overnight to a country in the Middle East and I helped him get asylum in Canada. So in that sense, I became increasingly involved in that case.
I did so because here was a young man who did something good, who should have been set as an example and instead, we ignored him. I was the only journalist to do a story on him for international television. I asked people in the military then: ‘This is a man, you should put him on a pedestal, you should tell other people that this is an example of what a Pakistani patriot is’. Instead, he now lives in Canada. It’s a loss for Pakistan to have lost someone like him.
Again, when I did a film in the earthquake zone, I became emotionally involved in the case of a woman who lost her husband and two children and who became a widow. She was getting propositioned by men and she had to leave for Karachi with 2 or 3 small children in tow. She’s struggling to make ends meet and I’ve been helping her get jobs.
Sometimes, you can’t distance yourself from these people just because you spend so much time with them, I’ve spent 4-6 weeks with such people and they become a part of who I am then. It becomes difficult for me to draw that line. And it’s not only in Pakistan. Sometimes being a human being comes before anything else.
Q: What has been the most difficult documentary you have made so far?
SOC: The most difficult documentary that I have ever made was in East Timor. It was a small island, remote and difficult to gain access to. There was gang violence going on and a lot of times you had to look over your shoulder. The culture was very alien to me, it was a different society. But it was a beautiful country and had stunning beaches. Coming back to the gang violence, it was very difficult for me to penetrate the gangs.
Q: Some would say you’re looking for trouble… that you have a death wish?
SOC: People have been known to say that about me. There is a tremendous feeling when you’re able to meet and understand situations. You see first-hand what all the fighting is about.
The one thing that I’ve learnt after being to all these places is that we’re not so bad in Pakistan. I mean, we have problems but we have a country. We’re not fighting to get a country. And if anything, travelling to conflict-riddled countries has made me more of a patriot because it made me realise that we have something that we really need to work to make better. I’ve seen what happens when things fall apart. And believe me, we do not want that to happen to us.
Q: You have received a lot of accolades for your documentaries. What do you say about that?
SOC: Every film I did won something. Every film I did got some recognition. It has helped me know what I’m doing. There’s got to be something right to it and I should continue doing it. It’s a very lonely life doing what I do because you take off for months on end in locations and I’m married with a family. I miss a lot of important occasions… it’s a hard life.
Q: Do you plan to show any documentaries of your here? Why didn’t you show any at the Shanaakht Festival?
SOC: I didn’t show any at Shanaakht because those films were about Partition and history and my films are very contemporary politics. I do try and show something at the KaraFilm Festival every year because that’s my only avenue through which I can reach out to Pakistanis.
However, I’m moving back to Karachi in December permanently and opening up a production house. I’m going to train journalists and film-makers to make quality film programmes for international television.
Q: Have you ever thought about opening a documentary channel?
SOC: I want the freedom to be able to work for many channels, such as Channel 4, Al Jazeera International, CNN, Discovery Times, PBS, etc. I would like to have four or five people who become the core team and who do individual projects under the banner of Sharmeen Obaid Films. Hopefully, the idea is that there would be a select group of people who would be trained at an international level.
I don’t think I can make documentaries for domestic television because the idea of documentary films in Pakistan simply does not exist. The appreciation is not there and quite honestly, quality programming on Pakistani TV stations does not exist. I’m talking specifically in terms of documentary films.
What I would really like to do is make documentary films for PTV when I come back. I think PTV really needs to revive itself and regain the glory that it once had. I’ve always had an affinity to PTV and I would really like to have something to do with them when I get back, along with international television as well.
It’s Springertime as MADtv opens its new season-CNN
September 15, 2007
From the ridiculous to the sublime. Or serious, at any rate. CNN’s sober, semi-regular documentary series
Special Investigations Unit takes viewers deep inside Afghanistan in the eye-opening Lifting the Veil, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s compelling followup to 2001’s Beneath the Veil.
By now, even a casual follower of the news knows the background: women were oppressed under the Taliban, attained new dignity and freedom after the fall of the Taliban, and are now facing repression again, as religious fundamentalists exert their influence in the wake of renewed Taliban attacks.
Obaid-Chinoy is a soft-spoken but quietly intense guide through the labyrinthine maze of Afghan society, and she shares several sad, intimate tales of women and young girls forced into arranged marriages, compelled to wear burqas and denied schooling. It’s not all a downer, though. At one point, Obaid-Chinoy has an emotional reunion with a young girl from Beneath the Veil; the girl is now in school, and happier for it. That’s a side of the story you don’t often hear about.
Lifting the Veil is well worth a look at something a little deeper and more meaningful than the usual Saturday-night TV fare. (8 & 11 p.m., CNN)
- - -
Lifting the Veil theage.com.au (Australian Newspaper)
September 14, 2007
Lifting the Veil.
- Type
- Documentary
- Channel
- CNN
- Date
- Saturday September 15
- Time
- 4:00 PM
Lifting the Veil: CNN Special Investigations Unit
September 14, 2007
Regular airtime: various (CNN) Cast: Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
US release date: 15 September 2007
by Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters Film and TV Editor
Just Something Women Do Here
I am caged in this corner, full of melancholy and sorrow.
My wings are closed and I cannot fly.
I must wail because I’m an Afghan woman.
—Nadia Anjuman
Early in Lifting the Veil, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy spots a woman sitting on a curb in Kabul. The woman is hunched over, dabbing at her eyes with her pale blue veil. Obaid-Chinoy decides to talk to her. She and her crew cross the street and sit down with the woman, to ask her name and how long she spends each day, begging. Bibi Gul tells her she begs every day, “from morning until evening.†Looking defeated, especially when a group of young men gathers to taunt her, Gul says she’s a war widow, one of more than a million in Afghanistan, Obaid-Chinoy adds. Without male relatives, unable to work because she is a woman, 40-year-old Gul, looks 20 years older when she removes her burqa at Obaid-Chinoy’s request. Her daughters, aged 14 and 16, want to go to school but she can’t afford the pencils and paper.
This is not the way it was supposed to be, Obaid-Chinoy says more than once during the documentary. Airing as part of CNN’s Special Investigations Unit, the film is a dynamic follow-up to a film she made back in 2001, at the start of the U.S. invasion. Back then, despite decades of war and poverty exacerbated by the Taliban’s oppressive rule, promises of freedom and aid brought hope. At the time of the invasion, the new film recalls, President Bush declared that women who were once “captives in their own homes†would now be “free.†Obaid-Chinoy counters this “confident†display with her own observations: “Now we’ve come back six years later,†she narrates, “to ask if life for women in Afghanistan is any better in a liberated country.â€
The answers are complicated, but one overwhelming truth is grim: this “newly democratic state†has not made life “better†for enough women, who still face conservative men, horrific poverty, and an often overwhelming sense of helplessness. Obaid-Chinoy, a documentary maker who was born in Karachi, looks beyond usual Western assumptions and determinedly pursues stories that take her off standard tracks. Charismatic and almost conspiratorial in her asides to the camera, Obaid-Chinoy’s work refreshingly activist, in the sense that she doesn’t stop at the first answer, but seeks out complications. She dons a burqa to sit on the street and beg with Gul for an afternoon, and listen to the verbal abuses hurled by passing men. At the end of he day Obaid-Chinoy turns to the camera and sighs. “Let’s face it: this issue of the burqa is just the tip of the iceberg. Afghan women face far graver issues than whether to wear the burqa or not.â€
Issues like destitution, rape, disgrace, and frankly monstrous family members—in-laws who beat them, husbands who terrorize them. Issues like lack of health care, due to underfunding and ignorance, as well as the fact that, as one doctor puts it, “It’s mostly mother-in-laws and husbands involved in making family decisions,†so that some 50 pregnant women die in Afghanistan every day (according to UNICEF). (For more on this topic, see the documentary Motherland Afghanistan.) Obaid-Chinoy visits a village hospital, where she sees rooms full of women who have tried to burn themselves to death. Their faces peeling and features deformed, the women she interviews seem frail and despondent. A doctor suggests that burning is a favored form of suicide because it’s a “poor country, so kerosene is widely available.†But Obaid-Chinoy has another idea. “I think these women wanted to make a point,†she asserts, “They didn’t want to die quietly, but in a way that let others know they suffered in life, a reflection of deep-seated issues in Afghan society that need to be addressed.â€
It’s a grand assessment, but the documentary makes it seem simultaneously obvious and perceptive. Obaid-Chinoy puts together the pieces that too many journalists leave hanging apart, making an argument, a passionate argument, based on what she’s seen. Still, she’s less interested in self-promotion than in bringing her subjects’ sagas into the foreground. It’s not just that Hamid Karzai is having troubles coordinating his government or that warlords are in bed with the Taliban. It’s that beautiful young Shahnaz was sold into marriage by her drug-addicted father when she was just seven years old. “I felt depressed when I found out,†says Shanahz, now 14 and utterly polite. The camera cuts to her husband, skulking in the doorway, as Obaid-Chinoy speaks out on the girl’s behalf: “It’s difficult for us to talk to Shahnaz because her mother-in-law and her husband keep coming into the room.â€
This is Obaid-Chinoy’s genius, the edge that makes her work both entertaining and astute. While the husband probably could care less that she’s called him out—in his world, she is a mere woman, after all—she invites her viewers into the storytelling process, working with recalcitrant subjects and difficult truths. When Shahnaz admits that she too burned herself three years ago, Obaid-Chinoy asks to see her scars. She raises her pants leg to show painfully thin legs, covered with burn marks. After learning that Shahnaz wants to be able to go to school, Obaid-Chinoy concludes this segment by walking out of the village, past sheep and a fairground Ferris wheel, a little bit of absurdity plunked down inside the nightmare. “Often,†she says as she walks, “child brides are little more than servants at home and virtual prisoners in marriage.â€
Those who do speak out, like the poet Nadia Anjuman, are also at risk; as Obaid-Chinoy reports, she studied literature in secret and published a book before she died at age 25. Obaid-Chinoy tracks down Nadia’s husband, Farid, accused of her murder but never convicted released from jail after just two months. Though Nadia’s brother says his family “forgave†Farid, “because of our religion,†they remain distressed. For his part, Farid insists that the bruises on his wife’s body were not causal in her death. Yes, he beat her that night, but she killed herself. “She was trying to put pressure on her family to make them love her more,†he says, his hands suggesting he simply doens’t understand it, but, oh well. “It’s just something women do here.â€
“Just something women do here.†Obaid-Chinoy doesn’t believe it any more than you do, and her film makes clear all the ways that such self-justifying is wrong. But she never lets the West generally, or the U.S. more specifically, off the hook. This makes Lifting the Veil those documentaries that purport to be “objective.†This film means to make you worry about the women you meet (even the young men who appear oblivious to the cruelties they inflict), and to make you mad that “billions of dollars in promised aid have failed to arrive or to reach those most in need.â€
“As a Muslim woman,†Obaid-Chinoy says, “I know attitudes like these are not inherent in our culture, that there are places in the world where we can walk around freely.†The film makes clear her feelings of oppression and frustration in Afghanistan, in close or canted frames and handheld footage of passersby staring at her, sans burqa. It also shows the shafts of hope that surprise and move her, including the father of an eight-year-old girl who saw her mother murdered six years ago. Though their village has no piped water, her father is proud that little Rukhsana is attending school, and hopes that one day she might “study to be a doctor or engineer.†This from a guy who looks as old-school as any of the men Obaid-Chinoy interviews. He looks forward to a future beyond himself, one premised on his daughter’s achievements.
“Afghanistan’s problems were not fixed by the invasion,†says Obaid-Chinoy. Lifting the Veil makes clear the unmet obligation of the invaders and the obstacles that lie ahead. It also argues, passionately and shrewdly, that the women of Afghanistan are more than ready to do their own work.
September 11, 2007
CBC Radio show “As it Happens” will interview Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy about her film Lifting the Veil on Tuesday September 11th at 11:45 a.m. EST
September 11, 2007
Lifting the Veil will premier on CNN Domestic and International on Sept 15th and 16th around the world
15th Sept: U.SA. and Canada
8 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Sunday 16th September
8 p.m.
U.K.
Saturday 15th September
0700, 1500 & 2000
Sunday 16th September
0700 & 2000
ASIA:
Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Manila,
Singapore and Taipei
Saturday, September 15 at 1400 & 2200
Sunday, September 16 at 0300 & 1400
Monday, September 17 at 0300
Bangkok and Jakarta
Saturday, September 15 at 1300 & 2100
Sunday, September 16 at 0200 & 1300
Monday, September 17 at 0200
India (Mumbai, New Delhi)
Sat Sept 15 at 1130 & 1930
Sun Sept 16 at 0030 & 1130
Mon Sept 17 at 0030
Pakistan
Sat Sept 15 at 1100 and 1900
Sat Sept 15/Sun Sept 16 at 0000
Sunday Sept 16 at 1100
Sun Sept 16/Mon Sept 17 at 0000
September 11, 2007
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy will appear on CNN (USA+Canada) to speak about her new film “Lifting the Veil” on Tuesday September 11 at 10:15 ET and 2:30 p.m. ET