Produced by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy,Daniel Junge, Davis Coombe, Alison Greenberg, Sabiha Sumar
Starring Dr Mohammad Jawad
Music by Gunnard Doboze
Editing by Milkhaus
Distributed by HBO
Release date: March 8, 2012
Country US/Pakistan
Saving Face is a 2011 documentary film about acid attacks on women. The film has been awarded the 2012 Academy Award for best Documentary (Short Subject), by director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
The film follows London based Pakistani plastic surgeon, Dr. Mohammad Jawad, as he journeys to Pakistan to perform reconstructive surgery on survivors of acid violence. Saving Face also broaches the subject of the under reporting of acid violence against women due to cultural and structural inequalities towards women from Pakistani Muslim men. The film also features two women attacked by acid and their struggle for justice and healing. The Acid Survivors Foundation of Pakistan, which is featured in the film, had documented over 100 acid attacks a year in Pakistan but estimates far more due to lack of reporting.
Production:
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy chose the subject of acid violence after being contacted by Junge, who had already filmed portions of the documentary prior to their discussion. Obaid-Chinoy commented to the Wall Street Journal that “The subject matter immediately appealed to me: Acid violence impacts women in southern Punjab and changes the lives of hundreds of women each year.” The documenters initially had some difficulty contacting and gaining the trust of the survivors in the film as well as connecting with the local community, but stated that “once we had spent a considerable amount of time on the ground and had established relationships, we did not experience any further obstacles.”
Saving Face Wins Oscar:
Saving Face won the 84th Academy Awards for Best Documentary (Short Subject). “The Pakistani filmmaker who is contending for the Oscar for “Saving Face” Horrific Acid Attacks Target Women in Pakistan. Films like “Saving Face” and a new Pakistani law that hands down a minimum mandatory prison terms of 14 years to life for acid attacks are potentially promising turning points.
Saving faces in Pakistan:
There are 150 acid attacks a year in Pakistan when plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad come to know that he went there to help repair the damage done to the victims. Zakia’s face looks as if half of it has been rubbed out. What’s left is one eye, half a nose and a mouth that can no longer smile. She seldom leaves the house, and when she does she wears an black niqab and sunglasses.
Now a pioneering surgeon in the field, just four years ago Jawad had never seen an acid attack injury, and certainly did not know they happened in Pakistan, the country in which he was born and trained as a doctor. Sitting in his prestigious cosmetic surgery clinic in central London, he tells me about his first case in 2008 at London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Katie Piper, a 23-year-old model, had been disfigured by sulphuric acid thrown by a violent ex-boyfriend.
On Zakia, Jawad was able to use the techniques he had learned through operating on Piper to carry out the first surgery of its kind in Pakistan. he used Matriderm to smooth her ravaged face, gave her a pair of glasses with a painted eye and attached a prosthetic nose, allowing her finally to show her face in public.
The documentary follows Zakia’s attempt to bring the husband who attacked her to justice and the successful fight by the Acid Survivors Foundation to introduce a law to ensure a minimum prison sentence of 14 years for perpetrators of acid attacks.
Many victims are women attacked by their husbands, and others assaulted for turning down a proposal of marriage. One girl in the documentary describes how she was burned after rejecting the advances of her teacher. She was 13 at the time.
Another woman featured in the film is 25-year-old Rukhsana, whose husband threw acid on her and her sister-in-law doused her in gasoline before her mother-in-law lit a match and set her on fire.
The documentary, which is filmed across Islamabad, Rawalpindi and the small towns of Punjab, was released in the US in November. it is due to release in the UK in March 2012, following which it will be released in Pakistan.
Pictures of Saving Life:
Saving Life Trailer:
GD Star Ratingloading…”Saving Life” Oscar Winning Sharmeen Obaid Film, 10.0 out of 10 based on 2 ratings
April 10, 2012 12:00 am by DECLAN WALSH / The new York Times
KARACHI, Pakistan — Fakhra Younas went under the surgeon's knife 38 times, hoping to repair the gruesome damage inflicted by a vengeful Pakistani man who had doused her face in acid a decade earlier, virtually melting her mouth, nose and ears.
The painful medical marathon took place in Rome, a distant city that offered Ms. Younas refuge, the generosity of strangers and a modicum of healing. she found an outlet in writing a memoir and making fearless public appearances. but while Italian doctors worked on her facial scars, some wounds refused to close.
On March 17, after a decade of pining for Pakistan, a country she loved even though its justice system had failed her terribly, Ms. Younas climbed to the sixth-floor balcony of her apartment building in the southern suburbs of Rome and jumped. she was 33.
News of her death filtered back to her home city, Karachi. And by the time her coffin arrived for burial, a storm of outrage had been whipped up — one framed by a glittering Hollywood success.
On Feb. 28, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a Karachi filmmaker, won Pakistan's first Academy Award, for “Saving Face,” a documentary that focuses in gritty detail on victims of acid violence like Ms. Younas. despite the film's disturbing topic, the Oscar gave Pakistanis a welcome shot of national pride, while focusing attention on a social ill.
Acid is the preferred weapon of vindictive men against women accused of disloyalty or disobedience. Common in several Asian countries, acid attacks in Pakistan grew sharply in number in 2011, to 150 from 65 in 2010, although some advocacy workers said the increase stemmed largely from better reporting.
The death of Ms. Younas galvanized the Pakistani news media. in Parliament, lawmakers vowed to take action, while one political leader called for a criminal investigation into the case to be reopened. but legal experts were skeptical that would happen, because the man Ms. Younas long accused of the attack — her ex-husband, Bilal Khar — was acquitted at trial nine years ago.
Unlike most men accused in acid attacks, Mr. Khar comes from a wealthy, powerful background. his family owns vast swaths of rich farmland in Punjab Province; his father, Mustafa, is a former provincial governor; his first cousin Hina Rabbani Khar is Pakistan's foreign minister. in recent weeks, Mr. Khar appeared on television several times to defend his reputation. “My hands are clean,” he said during one broadcast.
The appearances won him little public sympathy, with critics saying that the case exemplified how Pakistan's rich frequently evade justice. Yet there was a ringing contrast between the howls of condemnation and the virtual silence that greeted Ms. Younas after she was attacked a decade ago. And it raised a question: when this clamor has receded, will Pakistan's next acid victims stand a better chance of obtaining justice?
Deep-rooted social prejudice and misogyny were part of her story. Born to a heroin-addicted mother on Napier Road, Karachi's red-light district, by puberty Ms. Younas was a working “dancing girl” — a euphemism for prostitute. she had a son when she was 15. Then, in 1997, at 18, she achieved the vice girl's version of the Pakistani dream: she married a client, Bilal Khar, who came from the other side of the tracks.
But the marriage collapsed after three years, amid allegations of domestic violence, and Ms. Younas fled to her mother's home on Napier Road. she was sleeping there in may 2000 when two men burst into the apartment; one cast a bottle of liquid over her face and chest. Ms. Younas struggled and screamed, but it was too late: the acid fused her lips, melted her breasts and destroyed one eye. During a three-month stay in a hospital, she came close to death.
“She had two little holes for her nostrils, and her mouth was so melted that only a straw could fit in,” said Tehmina Durrani, a prominent Lahore figure who championed the case. Ms. Durrani had her own reasons for tackling the Khars — she had divorced Bilal's father, Mustafa, and had written a searing memoir of the marriage titled “My Feudal Lord.”
Other Pakistanis, however, showed little interest in the case. Newspapers, even liberal ones, gave the story scant coverage. Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government dragged its heels over issuing a passport to Ms. Younas, concerned that the case would hurt Pakistan's image.
Mr. Khar went on the run, and was declared a fugitive in early 2002. but when the trial started a year later, after Mr. Khar had been caught and arrested, the case quickly crumbled. although four witnesses testified to seeing him enter Ms. Younas's home the night of the attack, all later retracted their statements. Earlier, they had complained of intimidation by Mr. Khar, but the judge paid little notice, and in December 2003 he dismissed the case.
In one recent television interview, Mr. Khar described himself as the victim of a “media trial.” he pleaded for privacy to protect his three daughters, who, he said, were facing awkward questions over the case at school.
“You should be considerate about that,” he chided the host.
Ms. Younas was not present for the acquittal in 2003; she had left for Rome with her son, Noman. There, over a decade, she slowly rebuilt her life. The Italian government granted her political asylum; the city authorities offered her an apartment; and a Milan cosmetics company paid for her surgery.
Dr. Valerio Cervelli, a plastic surgeon who led the work, said it was difficult at first “because her lower lip was attached to her torso, she had no neck, and her eyes were permanently open.” Complicating matters, she ignored postoperative advice. “She was so headstrong, so independent,” he said.
Still, things improved: by the 38th operation, in early 2011, Ms. Younas could move her mouth and one eye. her once strikingly beautiful face, although still charred, had regained some of its shape. she had learned Italian, befriended local traders and co-written a memoir, “Il Volto Cancellato,” or “The Erased Face,” which brought in some income.
She ventured outside fearlessly, armed only with a bawdy sense of humor ingrained on the streets of Karachi. During a soccer match in Rome, when the noise grew too loud, Ms. Younas turned to fellow fans and “threatened to throw her false ear at them,” Ms. Durrani recalled with a chuckle.
But the grueling operations extracted a heavy physical and psychological toll, said Rachele Bonani, an aid worker who helped her. And, Ms. Bonani added, “she always wanted to go home.” but a return to Pakistan was out of the question for Ms. Younas, partly for security reasons: friends worried that her life would be in danger.
She vented her frustration at the local Pakistani Embassy. about two years ago, according to several accounts, Ms. Younas turned up, demanding to meet the ambassador. a heated confrontation developed during which “security was called,” a senior embassy employee said in an e-mail. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Ms. Younas was persuaded to leave the building voluntarily; Ms. Durrani insists that she was forcefully ejected by the Italian police, who later apologized.
“She gave up on justice,” Ms. Durrani said. “She gave up on the fact that she could ever come back. she knew how she would be treated.”
Since Ms. Younas's death, those close to her have recalled signs of deep-rooted depression. her son, Noman, said he was not surprised by the suicide, because she had tried twice before to kill herself.
“It was a bad time for her, because of a lot of things,” he said in a telephone interview. “I guess she had her reasons.”
Now in his first year of high school, Noman, 15, is in the care of an Italian family. he says he does not intend to return to Pakistan.
Pakistani advocacy workers point to promising signs that future acid victims will be treated better. Legal reforms enacted last year mandate stiff penalties, including a minimum 14-year sentence and a one million rupee ($11,100) fine for attackers. a new Acid and Burn Crime bill, due to come before Parliament soon, provides for better police investigations, trials and victim treatment. Further off, there are plans to regulate the sale of nitric and hydrochloric acids.
Some experts, however, worry that a notoriously weak police force and lower-court system in Pakistan could undercut any legal revolution.
“It's a systemic problem,” said Faisal Siddiqi, a lawyer who works with acid victims. “Regardless of the laws you bring, if you are poor and a woman, you will not get justice from the courts in Pakistan.”
Ms. Younas never saw “Saving Face,” but was buoyed by the acclaim it received, friends said.
On Monday, Ms. Obaid-Chinoy, the filmmaker, said: “The tragedy is that it took a film and a suicide to bring the problem of acid violence to the national consciousness. Sometimes it takes extremes for a nation to wake up to what's wrong within its borders.
“Now I just hope that the man who is responsible for this will face justice,” she added.
Despite the film's success, Ms. Younas's friends say it could not overcome her sense of isolation, heightened by the pain that the attacker who had stolen her beauty and crushed her life remained free.
“Had she been a politician's daughter or a general's daughter, then we would have seen what would have happened,” Ms. Durrani said. “But who was going to fight for a dancing girl?”
Gaia Pianigiani and Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Rome.
Correction: April 9, 2012, Monday
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An earlier version of a web summary on this article said incorrectly that the attack on Fakhra Younas was ten years ago. It took place in may 2000.
There are at least 100 reports of acid attacks in Pakistan each year, and they’re overwhelmingly against women.
While the number is shockingly high, it only accounts for the reported cases. Many more are assumed to go unreported.
The Academy Award-winning documentary short “Saving Face” looks at this phenomenon through the experiences of three people: Zakia, a 39-year-old woman whose husband threw acid on her after she filed for divorce; Rukhasana, a 23-year-old woman who was attacked by her husband and his family; and Dr. Mohammad Jawad, a Pakistani-British plastic surgeon dedicated to healing the faces of the injured women.
Working with her American co-director Daniel Junge, filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy — the first person from Pakistan to win an Oscar — has placed the issue of acid attacks on Pakistan’s women in the spotlight, bringing international attention to the global human rights abuse.
Obaid Chinoy said the attacks are committed by “husbands, suitors, scorned lovers … people who feel that they need to teach the women in their family a lesson.” she stressed that these women have done nothing wrong when they’re attacked.
“The crime is in the minds of the men. for example, if they feel that their wife has been unfaithful. Or if they feel that someone has turned down a suit. A person proposes marriage, somebody turns it down, and he says ‘Well, if I can’t have her, no one can’,” she said.
In the film, Jawad said she feels a sense of personal responsibility to these women who have been so horribly disfigured. in one telling scene, he struggled to make sense of their horrific stories.
“I just, I cannot understand this,” she said. “I’m trying not to be angry. I don’t want to hear these stories anymore. There’s an end to this story.”
But in reality, there is no end.
“Even for a hardened surgeon like Dr. Jawad, he was emotionally struck by it,” Junge said.
One of the challenges of a film like “Saving Face,” which is completely subtitled and features a cast that does not speak English, was translating the brutality of the situation while still showing the hope and strength of the women — so as not to portray them as helpless victims.
For Chinoy, the toughest challenge was seeing that the horrific attacks were happening in her own country, not far from where she grew up.
“It was horrific, personally, to deal with the mindset of the men. I think when Daniel and I were thinking about the film, we were thinking about how we could show the women to not be the victims, but to be the survivors,” she said. “You see the women in the film laughing and joking, and you see through that mayhem and through the disfigurement, that these are women struggling on a daily basis just to raise a family. They have the same kind of issues as anybody else does. We’ve heard from people who’ve come out of watching the film, that they’ve connected with the women.”
The Acid Survivors Trust International estimates that globally, there are approximately 1,500 acid attacks a year. because acid attacks are largely underreported, the numbers are probably much higher. According to the trust, victims of acid violence are overwhelmingly women and children. Attackers are almost always male, and victims are attacked for refusing proposals of love, sex or marriage.
Chinoy said that the attacks take place in an area in Pakistan known as the Saraiki belt, which has the lowest levels of education and the highest levels of unemployment.
“You don’t need a license to buy acid, and there is a mindset that violence against women is OK. for years, violence against women, especially women in the family, has gone unpunished,” she said. ”During the making of this film, we saw a very active Parliament in Pakistan drafting a bill, hearing the testimonies of these women, and presenting a bill that now makes acid violence punishable by life imprisonment.”
In the past year, the Pakistani government has enacted three major laws in support of women. During production last year, one law passed that would mandate a minimum, mandatory prison term of 14 years — and as long as life — for acid attacks.
These advancements, in addition to the film’s hopeful scenes, inspired Pakistani women to implement change in their communities.
“The first time that Zakia, the film’s main subject, puts on makeup, she wears red, which is a symbol for hope and a new beginning. she walks for the first time without covering her face on the streets of Rawalpindi. you see people looking at her, and you see her confidence. That’s when you realize that even for these women, everything — any small thing makes such a big difference,” Chonoy said.
While some of the men who were accused of and convicted of these crimes are imprisoned, many others are not and are unapologetic about their horrendous actions.
Rukhasana’s husband said the woman’s bad temper led her to pour gasoline over herself while standing too close to a candle — by way of explanation for her disfigurement. He also claimed that 99 percent of women in the burn clinic “have burned themselves alive.”
Chinoy explained the men felt that they had done nothing wrong.
“That mindset needs to be changed. but we needed to show the mindset of the men for the audience to understand what these women have to go through on a daily basis and why they are victims of such a heinous attack,” she said
The film has inspired many other Pakistani women to come forward to testify against their attackers.
“It’s an incredible feeling in a country that has such bleak news,” Chinoy said. “It really shows to Pakistanis that we can solve our own problems if we so desire to.”
THE left-hand side of Zakia’s face looks as though it has been rubbed out with an eraser. her eye and cheek have been replaced by featureless pink flesh. Scar tissue pulls her mouth down at the corner. Zakia’s husband threw battery acid in her face; the highest quality and undiluted, she explains. She divorced him after years of abuse and he attacked her outside the courthouse. it took just a second to ruin her life.
Zakia (pictured) is one of the women in “Saving Face”, a film directed by Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy about acid attacks in Pakistan. on February 26th it won the Oscar for a short documentary. More than 100 such assaults are recorded every year in Pakistan. many more go unreported. the film allows these women to tell their stories, painfully, carefully, bravely.
It follows Mohammad Jawad, a Pakistani-British plastic surgeon who regularly travels to Pakistan to perform free surgery on women injured by acid attacks. there he meets Rukhsana. her husband threw acid on her. then her sister-in-law poured petrol over her. Finally her mother-in-law took a match and set her on fire. a cerise and gold veil hangs over her head, its delicate glamour in stark contrast to her ruined face. She still lives with her attackers, she explains, because otherwise she could not afford to care for her sick children. “This is the room where they burned me alive,” she tells the film-makers: a house tour gone horribly wrong. Rukhsana’s husband Yasir, a smirk playing around his lips and a vacant look in his eyes, denies everything. his wife has high blood pressure and a bad temper, he insists. She did it to herself, as did 99% of the women who claim to be victims of acid attacks.
While mr Jawad is trying to fix their faces, Rukhsana and others are trying to fix the law. Perpetrators of these crimes often walk free. some victims want the death penalty. Others say the men should have acid thrown in their own faces: an eye for an eye. In the end, Parliament has passed a law that would send attackers to jail for at least 14 years. Zakia’s husband is the first to be convicted under the new legislation.
“Looking good, baby,” mr Jawad beams at Zakia after her surgery. She will require more operations, but for the first time since the attack she goes out with her face uncovered. “Tomorrow seems much better than today,” Zakia smiles.
HBO DOCUMENTARY FILMS PRESENTATION “SAVING FACE” RECEIVES ACADEMY AWARD(R) FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 27, 2012 – the HBO Documentary Films presentation SAVING FACE received an Academy Award(R) in the category of Best Documentary Short at the 84th annual Academy Awards(R), presented at the 2012 ceremony of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Feb. 26.
every year in Pakistan, many people – the majority of them women – are known to be victimized by brutal acid attacks, while numerous other cases go unreported. With little or no access to reconstructive surgery, survivors are physically and emotionally scarred, and many reported assailants, typically a husband or someone else close to the victim, are let go with minimal punishment from the state.
Debuting THURSDAY, MARCH 8 (8:30-9:15 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO, SAVING FACE chronicles the arduous attempts of acid-attack survivors Zakia and Rukhsana to bring their assailants to justice, and follows the charitable work of Dr. Mohammad Jawad, a plastic surgeon who strives to help them go beyond this horrific act and move on with their lives.
other HBO playdates: March 8 (5:30 a.m.), 11 (8:45 a.m.), 14 (5:15 p.m.), 17 (1:45 p.m. ET only, 2:15 p.m. PT only, 5:40 a.m.), 20 (6:15 a.m., 11:50 p.m.) and 23 (1:45 p.m.)
HBO2 playdates: March 24 (8:15 a.m.) and 28 (8:00 p.m., 2:40 a.m.)
SAVING FACE is directed by Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy; produced by Davis Coombe, Daniel Junge, Alison Greenberg, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Sabiha Sumar; edited by Davis Coombe and Hemal Trivedi; original music by Gunnard Doboze; featuring original vocals by Kiran Ahluwalia. For HBO: senior producer, Lisa Heller; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.
Saving Face, which won the Oscar for best Documentary Short, highlights the issue of acid attacks against women in Pakistan. about 150 cases are reported each year in that country, which is one of a dozen or so to experience this form of violence. but incidents are likely underreported.
U.S. filmmaker Daniel Junge, 42, teamed up with Pakistani director Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, 33, to tell the story of Rukhsana and Zakia, two Pakistani mothers disfigured when their husbands threw acid –known as “tezaab” or “sharp water” in Urdu—on them. in the film, Zakia, 39, decides to take on her ex-husband in court, in a landmark case testing a new Pakistani law punishing perpetrators of acid violence. Rukhsana, 25 and pregnant, remains with her abusive husband. Both seek medical help from Mohammed Jawad, a Pakistani-born plastic surgeon who earns his living by performing cosmetic surgery in the United Kingdom but devotes part of every year to pro bono work in Pakistan reconstructing the faces of women who have suffered acid burns.Saving Face airs this evening at 8:30 p.m. ET on HBO.
Do you think your film’s Oscar will have an impact in Pakistan?Daniel Junge: The global platform we have now is unparalleled. Sharmeen has been completely embraced by the government of Pakistan. They’re awarding her the country’s highest civilian honor. This means they’re accountable now for this problem and might have the ability to eradicate it.
Has the film been shown there yet?We hope to show the film in Pakistan, but we need to ensure the women’s safety first.
Sharmeen is the first Pakistani director to be honored with an Academy Award. How does that feel?Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy: It’s incredible the Academy has given an Oscar for a film on such an important subject and to a team of Pakistanis and American filmmakers. it showed me that you can be anyone and do good work and it will be appreciated.
What’s been the reaction of Rukhsana and Zakia to the Oscar win?Chinoy: They’re both very delighted and excited that acid violence has received global attention. but they’re not used to being exposed to attention and the media, so they’re slightly apprehensive, especially Zakia, because her ex-husband has appealed [his conviction] to a high court.
How did you contact with these women initially and establish trust so that they felt comfortable telling their stories?Chinoy: The Acid Survivors Foundation [a Pakistani charity] connected us with those women, and because I’m Pakistani, I was able to connect with them and made them feel comfortable. I was allowed into this inner sanctum, which is very rare. We treated them with dignity and respect.
Mohammed Jawad, the plastic surgeon who volunteers his services to help reconstruct the women’s faces, says at one point in the film that he feels a moral obligation to do the work that he does. do you feel the same way as a filmmaker?
Chinoy: There is a moral obligation to tell these stories and make Pakistan a better place to live in, to effect change and mobilize change. We are privileged and educated and if we don’t do it, who will?
Do you see yourselves as journalists or activists? A little of both?
Chinoy: I was born an activist. I became a journalist but I will always be an activist. all my films are centered on activism, whether they take place in Canada, Sweden, or Pakistan. My motivation in all these films is, does [the subject] make me angry? are others not talking about it? if not, why not? I choose topics that make people uncomfortable.
Junge: I don’t see myself as an activist. I am a filmmaker first and foremost. There’s no better dramatic conflict than in social justice situations around the world. if my films are able to help effect change, then I sleep better at night. I have the highest regard for activists. but as a filmmaker, I’d get tripped up by that.
Sharmeen, both you and Dr. Jawad are Pakistanis who also have lived elsewhere—he in the UK and you in the U.S. and Canada. but it’s been important to you both to go back and devote yourselves to working in Pakistan. do you identify with Dr. Jawad?
Chinoy: It’s hard not to identify with Dr. Jawad. When I first met him, he gave me an analogy that Pakistan is like a sick, dying mother who needs her sons and daughters to come home and help her recover. So the doctors and lawyers and engineers who left, the onus is on all these people to come back. We are the first to criticize ourselves, we should be the first to help. now I spend more time in Pakistan. I have moved back and I am working on a lot of projects there.
One of the most disturbing scenes in the film is when Rukhsana’s husband denies any role in her injuries and says she inflicted them on herself. Then he says, “Ninety-nine percent of all women burn themselves alive.” What was it like to hear him say that?
Chinoy: I had to restrain myself from punching his face out! it was very hard to hear that. but it provides us with an understanding of what some men believe, and what these women are up against. You realize they have no exposure or education. He would have benefited from state education.
Is education the way to end this violence?
Chinoy: There’s no single solution. There also has to be advocacy on the ground and a greater understanding of the impact on women–that this is one of the unmanliest things to do.
The film ends after Rukhsana has given birth to her baby and has to wait for her reconstructive surgery. How is she now?
Chinoy: Rukhsana went back to her husband [at first but] now has left for the Acid Survivors Foundation [a safe house]. Dr. Jawad has had to wait to do the surgery because she was breastfeeding her baby, but he will do the surgery in the coming months.
Your Oscar win helps shine a spotlight on Pakistani film, about which the world knows very little. What’s happening in the Pakistani film industry?
Chinoy: We had a very vibrant film industry in the 50s and 60s but it died when [1980s military dictator] General Zia ul Haq killed art and culture that was not within the confines of Islam. now, 25 or 30 years later, there’s a generation of filmmakers eager to tell stories. And now it’s easier to tell stories, but we don’t have enough filmmakers to teach the basics, so sometimes the quality isn’t up to par. I recently started teaching a filmmaking class and am mentoring younger filmmakers. We should have an in-house pool to draw from rather than relying on help from outside.
Toward the end of the film, Dr. Jawad says that by doing his work, “I am saving my own face, because I’m part of a society that has this disease” of acid violence. The perpetrators of the violence also feel, in a way that’s less easy to understand, that their honor is at stake—in Zakia’s husband’s case, his honor was wounded because she wanted to divorce him. What does honor mean in the context of the film?
Junge: Honor is a malleable thing, isn’t it? Jawad sees people [like the perpetrators] using “dignity” in the wrong way. I hope in the case of our film, we give voice to the most honorable thing, which is human beings helping others and making the world a better place.
What’s next for both of you?
Junge: I’m working on a film called Alpha Boys, about a school for disadvantaged boys in Jamaica that gave birth to reggae, and two other films.
Chinoy: I’m working on an animated superhero series called Super Jawan [Jawan means young], with a cast of three—one girl and two boys. There’s such a void in children’s programming in Pakistan and this is a great vehicle.-Hannah Bloch
A tale of bravery and defiance and almost unimaginable cruelty, the film “Saving Face” (8:30 p.m. on HBO) just won the 2012 Oscar for best documentary short.
The film explores Pakistan’s dark history of angry men and their relatives who burn women’s faces — often with battery acid — as a means to punish a disobedient wife or to demean and destroy a woman who refuses a marriage proposal or sexual advances. Women as young as 12 come to the Acid Survivors Foundation, a special clinic in Islamabad.
Dr. Mohammad Jawad, a Pakistani-born plastic surgeon living in London, volunteers his time and services to help these women and give them back their pride, if not their lives. One woman seen here is so poor and desperate that she’s forced to live with the man who, along with his family, burned her with acid and set her on fire.
The Pakistan that is seen in “Saving Face” is like a 21st-century society with one foot stuck in the Middle Ages. but we also see growing ranks of women lawyers, doctors and politicians demanding legislation to toughen laws and enact stricter sentences for perpetrators of these grotesque crimes. The film’s main stories follow two victims through surgery and recuperation as well as the progress of anti-burning legislation through Pakistan’s parliament. We also meet accused perpetrators whose elaborate justifications, denials and excuses give new meaning to the phrase “the banality of evil.”
A short, poignant work, “Saving Face” barely penetrates the mentality that leads Pakistani men to such actions. Jawad explains that he offers up his work as a kind of expiation for a society that creates such monsters. but he freely admits that there is only so much he can do.
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— a diminutive suspect transcends parallel worlds on “Awake” (10 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
— Go “Celebrity House Hunting” (Bio, TV-PG) with Ice- T and Coco (10 p.m.) and Andy Dick (10:30 p.m.).
Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld star in the 1968 shocker “Pretty Poison” (10:15 p.m., TCM). this follows the 1944 comedy “Arsenic and old Lace” (8 p.m.), starring Cary Grant.
On two episodes of “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS, TV-PG): Relationships 101 (8 p.m.), less than enthused (8:30 p.m., r) … Snow and penguins on “Wipeout” (8 p.m., ABC, r, TV- PG) … a dinner party ruined on “The Vampire Diaries” (8 p.m., The CW, r, TV-14) … Sean Hayes guest-stars on “Parks and Recreation” (8:30 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).
An infant may become the next “Person of Interest” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14) … a monster returns on “Supernatural” (9 p.m., The CW, r, TV-14) … a surgical milestone on “Grey’s Anatomy” (9 p.m., ABC, r, TV-14) … Coupled-up friends on “Up All Night” (9:30 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
Suspect motives on “The Mentalist” (10 p.m., CBS, TV- 14) … The search committee seems baffled on “Private Practice” (10 p.m., ABC, r, TV-14).
Trita Parsi is scheduled on “The Daily show with Jon Stewart” (11 p.m., Comedy Central) … Rob Riggle and Mike Lawrence appear on “Conan” (11 p.m., TBS) … Jennifer Westfeldt, Jeff Wild, Natasha Leggero and Bobby Lee are booked on “Chelsea Lately” (11 p.m., E!) … Don Fleming and Emmylou Harris sit down on “The Colbert Report” (11:30 p.m., Comedy Central).
Howard Stern and the Airborne Toxic Event appear on “Late show with David Letterman” (11:35 p.m., CBS, r) … Jay Leno welcomes Jennifer Aniston, Adam Levine and Chiddy Bang on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC, r) … Joan Rivers, Maria Menounos and Mat Kearney appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (midnight, ABC, r).
Maya Rudolph, Dylan Ratigan and Young Jeezy featuring Ne-Yo visit “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” (12:35 a.m., NBC, r) … Craig Ferguson hosts Raquel Welch and Carl Edwards on “The Late Late Show” (12:35 a.m., CBS).
Kevin McDonough can be reached at kevin.tvguy@gmail.com.
Here’s a closer look at the Pakistani Oscar-winning film Saving Face, and it’s director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.A story of survival and hope, the Oscar winning documentary for short subject, Saving Face, not only tells the story of two women who are victims of acid attacks in Pakistan but also that of plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad who returned to Pakistan from London [ Images ] to help victims.the first ever film from Pakistan to win an Oscar, Saving Face was directed by Emmy winner and journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy with Daniel Junge. Obaid-Chinoy, 33, is married to a Pakistani in Canada [ Images ] and divides time between Toronto and her hometown Karachi.In Pakistan, a woman’s face is deemed to be her greatest asset, the filmmakers say. ‘Someone seeking to punish a woman need only destroy her face to do her permanent harm — both physically and socially.’Saving Face exposes how acid attacks affect women in Pakistan, including Zakia, whose husband attacked her outside a courthouse when she filed for divorce, and Rukhsana, whose spouse threw acid on her in their home where she still lives because she cannot afford to care for her children alone. Zakia not only benefited from Dr Jawad’s treatment, she also went to court to prosecute her husband for the attack. the case became the first to be tried under a new law in Pakistan that punishes perpetrators of acid attacks with life imprisonment.each year, hundreds of women in Pakistan, India [ Images ] and Bangladesh become acid attack victims. according to the film, the majority of the attacks are carried out by enraged husbands or rejected suitors. Reports say that in 2010, there were over 8,000 incidents of violence against women, including forced marriages and acid attacks. that number is low, as some victims do not report the crimes, social workers say.the film, which charts the work of Balsall Heath, United Kingdom-based non-governmental organization Islamic Help and its long-running program in treating victims of devastating attacks, received accolades in the short documentary category at a glittering ceremony in Los Angeles.Obaid-Chinoy said: ‘Daniel Junge thought it would be fascinating to see how Dr Jawad’s revolutionary plastic surgery skills could be used. our story shows the audience how a country’s own people can help overcome problems. We hope the documentary will help people understand acid violence.’Saving Face competed against God is the Bigger Elvis, a Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson film about a mid-century starlet who chose the church over Hollywood; Barber of Birmingham, a Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday film that follows the life of 85-year-old barber James Armstrong and the legacy of the civil rights movement; James Spione’s war film Incident in new Baghdad; and the Tsunami [ Images ] and the Cherry Blossom by Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen that follows the survivors of Japan’s [ Images ] 2011 earthquake and their struggle to recover from the devastation.Obaid-Chinoy, who received an international Emmy award for her documentary film Pakistan’s Taliban [ Images ] Generation, has also received several awards from South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA).she has two masters’ degrees from Stanford and has made over a dozen-multi award winning films in over 10 countries around the world and is the first non-American to be awarded the Livingston Award for best international reporting.Most of her work carried out in the last eight years has centered on the problems of Muslim and non-Muslim women including the problems faced by women immigrants of color in a post-apartheid South Africa [ Images ].she told a Pakistan television channel that one of the many people in her family who backed her vision and her efforts was her father. Her 2008 Emmy Award winning film about the recruitment of child suicide bombers was bittersweet, she said, adding, on the same day that she landed in new York to accept the reward, father suddenly died in Karachi.’The most incredible part of that was that the day before he passed away, I spoke to him and he said, I saw you, you won the Emmy,’ she said. ‘And I said, no, it’s tomorrow. I haven’t gone yet and he said, no, I know you won it.’Obaid Chinoy is also one of the leaders in the 21 Young Leaders Initiative at Asia Society.Vishakha Desai, president, Asia Society, said, ”The Asia Society extends its congratulations to Sharmeen and her co-director, Daniel Junge, for winning the award, but more importantly, for furthering the conversation to address this important issue.’
Saving Face: Documentary. 8:30 p.m. Thurs. on HBO.
“He just didn’t want me,” Zakia says, half her face hidden by her head scarf.
when the Pakistani woman goes out in public, she always wears a burqa and a pair of sunglasses to hide her face. In the privacy of Pakistan’s Acid Burn Center, she uncovers her face, half of which is a mass of featureless, patchy skin, as if molten wax had been poured over it. Her nose is pushed out of symmetry, her lips almost normal on one side of her face, but stretched to an immobile grimace on the other. Over time, the scar tissue is tightening, pulling against her mouth and making it increasingly difficult for her to eat or drink.
Zakia is one of about 100 known annual victims of acid attacks in Pakistan. Most of the victims are women who have been disfigured by their husbands. Rukhsana is another woman in “Saving Face,” a stunning profile of courage that won the Oscar this year as best documentary short and will be televised Thursday on HBO. She was first attacked by her husband with acid, after which her sister-in-law threw gasoline on her, which, in turn, was ignited by Rukhsana’s mother-in-law. Despite such monstrous treatment, Rukhsana remains in her in-laws’ home, hoping against hope that by appeasing them, she will one day be reunited with her daughter, who is kept from her part of the house by a brick wall.
At first, it is difficult to look at the faces of the women profiled in “Saving Face,” directed by Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. If you saw scars like these in a Hollywood movie, you might find them horrifying, but you’d know that, at the end of the day, the actors would be able to leave their prosthetic makeup on the lot. the women in “Saving Face” have to live with their injuries for the rest of their lives.
It’s that knowledge that, over the course of the 40-minute film, opens our own eyes to the real beauty of these women, the beauty of their courage and determination to survive, no matter what it takes.
Regardless of the advances that have been made in gender equality in our own country, there are still cultures where women are more than merely subservient to men. as Rukhsana says when she is told her pregnancy will delay reconstructive surgery, women do not have it easy in Pakistan. That’s why, until recently, men were able to get away with disfiguring their wives, for whatever twisted reason. It’s also why her husband’s sister and mother participated in the attack on Rukhsana.
“Saving Face” follows the story of Zakia and Rukhsana as they undergo surgery at the hands of Dr. Mohammad Jawad, a Karachi-born London plastic surgeon who regularly returns to his homeland to help victims of acid attacks. His biggest challenge, he says, is often “managing expectations”: In most cases, there is only so much a surgeon can do to restore an acid-scarred face.
“We can’t be God and re-create all you’ve lost,” he says.
In Zakia’s case, while he is able to replace some of the scar tissue with a recently developed artificial skin, when he uncovers the place where her right eye had been, he finds the socket not only empty but incapable of even holding a glass eye.
The film also follows efforts by members of the Pakistani Parliament to pass legislation establishing severe punishment for those convicted of acid attacks. Led largely by female politicians, the bill passes overwhelmingly and a big step is taken toward ending a despicable practice.
But the film also prompts us to consider the bases of the attacks themselves. Zakia’s husband, Pervez, while denying he threw battery acid in his wife’s face, says that his “dignity” was threatened when she tried to divorce him after repeated abuse. as he awaits trial, he has threatened to harm her again if he’s found innocent.
“Saving Face” is an inspiring film on many levels, populated with heroes like Jawad and courageous women like Zakia and Rukhsana. In many ways, there is a happy ending to this brutal story, but at the same time, we are left to ponder how much work still needs to be done to bring women to positions of respect and equality, in Pakistan, other countries and in their own homes.
This article appeared on page E – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 27, 2012 – the HBO Documentary Films presentation SAVING FACE received an Academy Award® in the category of Best Documentary Short at the 84th annual Academy Awards®, presented at the 2012 ceremony of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Feb. 26.
Every year in Pakistan, many people – the majority of them women – are known to be victimized by brutal acid attacks, while numerous other cases go unreported. with little or no access to reconstructive surgery, survivors are physically and emotionally scarred, and many reported assailants, typically a husband or someone else close to the victim, are let go with minimal punishment from the state.
Debuting THURSDAY, MARCH 8 (8:30-9:15 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO, SAVING FACE chronicles the arduous attempts of acid-attack survivors Zakia and Rukhsana to bring their assailants to justice, and follows the charitable work of Dr. Mohammad Jawad, a plastic surgeon who strives to help them go beyond this horrific act and move on with their lives.other HBO playdates: March 8 (5:30 a.m.), 11 (8:45 a.m.), 14 (5:15 p.m.), 17 (1:45 p.m. ET only, 2:15 p.m. PT only, 5:40 a.m.), 20 (6:15 a.m., 11:50 p.m.) and 23 (1:45 p.m.)HBO2 playdates: March 24 (8:15 a.m.) and 28 (8:00 p.m., 2:40 a.m.)
SAVING FACE is directed by Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy; produced by Davis Coombe, Daniel Junge, Alison Greenberg, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Sabiha Sumar; edited by Davis Coombe and Hemal Trivedi; original music by Gunnard Doboze; featuring original vocals by Kiran Ahluwalia. for HBO: senior producer, Lisa Heller; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.
April 10, 2012 12:00 am by DECLAN WALSH / The new York Times
Eyes ahead 
March 08, 2012 12:00 AM
Here’s a closer look at the Pakistani Oscar-winning film Saving Face, and it’s director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.A story of survival and hope, the 
Saving Face: Documentary. 8:30 p.m. Thurs. on HBO.