Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (born 1978) is an internationally renowned
Emmy and
Oscar award winning
Pakistani journalist and
documentarian. She won an
Emmy for her documentary,
Pakistan: Children of the Taliban in 2010.
[1][2] She is also the first non-American to win the
Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
[2] .
[3] On 26 February 2012 Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy won an Oscar for her documentary
Saving Face. She is the first Pakistani to win the prestigious award.
[4]
Early life
Sharmeen Obaid was born in Karachi to an Urdu speaking family, and attended the
Karachi Grammar School.
[5] Sharmeen graduated from Smith College with a bachelor of arts in economics and government and then went to complete two master's degrees from Stanford University in International Policy Studies and Communication.
Obaid's career in documentary filmmaking began when she examined the plight of Afghani refugee children in Pakistan for one of her articles. Their situation was so dire, and their stories so compelling, that Sharmeen decided to return to Pakistan and create a film about them. She petitioned Smith College and New York Times Television production division for the grants that would allow her to accomplish her goals. Intrigued by her story, both organizations gave her the funds as well as production equipment and training. She is currently a faculty member at media sciences department in SZABIST (Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and technology, Karachi).
Career as Documentation
Known for documentaries dealing with life in the
Muslim world, Obaid became the first non-American to win the
Livingston Award.
[6] Her films have aired on such networks as
Channel 4,
CNN,
PBS, and
Al-Jazeera.
Obaid began her career with New York Times Television in 2002 where she produced
Terror's Children, a film about
Afghan refugee children, which won her the Overseas Press Club Award, the American Women and Radio and Television Award, and the South Asian Journalist Association Award.
[6] Since then, she has produced and reported on more than twelve films around the world.
Obaid produced and reported on four multi-award winning documentary films for New York Times Television. In 2003,
Reinventing the Taliban was awarded the Special Jury Award at the BANFF TV festival in Canada, the CINE Golden Eagle Award, the American Women in Radio and Television award, and the Livingston Award.
[6] In 2005, her film
Women of the Holy Kingdom, which provided an inside look at the women's movement in Saudi Arabia, won the South Asian Journalist Association Award.
[6]
In 2005, Obaid began working with Channel 4 in the United Kingdom reporting on four films for their Unreported World series.
Pakistan's Double Game looked at sectarian violence in Pakistan,
City of Guilt explored the Catholic Church's pro-life movement in the Philippines,
The New Apartheid looked into growing xenophobia in South Africa, and
Birth of a Nation delved into the politics of East Timor. In 2007, Obaid was named "journalist of the year" by the One World Media awards for her work in the series.
In 2007, Obaid travelled to Afghanistan and reported for Channel 4 and CNN. Her film,
Afghanistan Unveiled/Lifting the Veil, focuses on stalled reconstruction and the repression of women in the country.
In 2010, she won an Emmy Award for her documentary,
Pakistan: Children of the Taliban, which explores Taliban recruitment strategies, their effect on the youth and their methods to radicalize the country’s young and often dejected populace.
[2] Children of the Taliban premiered FiLums (2011) - the largest film festival in Pakistan held annually at the
Lahore University of Management Sciences.
In 2012, she became the first Pakistani to ever have won an Oscar for her documentary
Saving Face, highlighting the plight of women in Pakistan dealing with acid burns on faces that occur as a result of male domination.
[7] 
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