Sharmeen bats for greater Indo-Pak film, documentary exchange

Terming art and culture as the best possible bridge between India and Pakistan, award-winning Pakistani documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has called for greater exchange between the two countries on documentary and fiction film-making and wants to do more work in India.
She also said 70 years since Partition are too long a time to understand that the two countries cannot keep fighting and there is a huge role to be played by art and culture, films and music and sports.
"Sporting diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, film diplomacy, music diplomacy and art diplomacy must never be mistaken with politics and war," Obaid-Chinoy told PTI in an interview here.

She was in Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, where she was one of the co-chairs -- the first for someone from the arts segment -- of the summit held under the theme of 'Responsive and Responsible Leadership'.
The 38-year-old Obaid-Chinoy, a journalist-turned- filmmaker who has won two Oscars and several other awards for her documentaries that include films on topics like acid attack on women and honour killing in Pakistan, said these issues are very much relevant in India and the entire South Asia.
Some of her works have even led to new laws in Pakistan to counter violence against women.

"My work always has an agenda -- to influence a public policy, start a conversation and push new legislations for good of society and that's something I have always been involved into, and I hope to remain involved so," she said.

Asked whether her work managed to influence policies from the beginning or did she find it difficult earlier, she said "My work always had an impact whether it was in terms of getting people to talk about an issue, or getting people think differently about an issue or even getting people angry about an issue.
"So, I think you can influence public policy or the government when you have a body of work that makes them respect you."

Asked whether she would consider collaborating with Indian filmmakers, Obaid-Chinoy said, "I am mentoring documentary filmmakers in India who are working on a project right now. I am helping them craft the story and whenever they have a question they come to me.
"Mentorship is very important and I will love to mentor more filmmakers. My biggest dream would be to see during my lifetime the two countries who are free, who are able to have cultural exchanges, sporting exchanges and trade exchanges and become the power of a single block. It is very sad thing that the trade is so low between the two countries."

On some of her most-talked about works being on issues like honour killing and acid attacks being relevant in India as well and whether she would like to work in India, she said she would love to do so.
"All these issues are regional issues and they affect women in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. It is a South Asian issue. I would love to work more in the region. I would love to work in India.
"I have travelled to India many times and every time I show my films there, everybody wants to use those films in the community they work in because we look the same, we talk the same and our issues are exactly the same."

"There are very few documentary filmmakers in India, and
even among those who are there, very very few do films on violence against women. So many times, I have heard that there is a need for more documentary filmmakers in India. And I tell them that we need more fiction filmmakers in Pakistan.
"It could be a great cross-border exchange if we have it because Pakistan has some very good documentary filmmakers. My acid violence film was used a lot in India and so was the honour killing film as these issues are very much relevant in India.
"If we were to do more cross-border work on documentary filmmaking and fiction films, it would be good for both the countries," she stressed.

According to Obaid-Chinoy, when she creates a work, she wants it to be used, whether it is in India, Bangladesh or Pakistan.
"At the end of the day, violence against women does not know any colour, religion or ethnicity. It's blind to all of that and all women face some sort of violence in their life," she added.
On jingoism coming in the way of relations between the two countries, she said, "We are in 2017 and it is 70 years since the Independence and Partition of the Indian sub-continent. How many more generations are going to fight a war? We can no longer afford to have a war between the two countries.

"The economics does not allow it. The proximity does not allow it, given how advanced the weapons are now. The world cannot afford a war in South Asia. By default, we have to learn to get along.
"Just imagine if we remove trade constraints and remove the constraints for free movement of citizens from each other's country, it will transform South Asia. It is in our collective best interest to do so and there will always be naysayers and the people who believe in closing borders and putting up fences.
"But it is our job to pull the fences as anyone who has travelled across the border from the two countries will tell you that they didn't feel anything but love.

"If no one who has crossed the border never felt any hatred for each other, then what are we fighting about? So, we have to find a way to start working on issues like trade and both the countries will have to do it."
She further said the onus is also on India, being a bigger country, to play a much larger role to open up trade to Pakistan.
"I don't want that 70 years from now, two people standing here and having a conversation that 140 years ago there was a partition and we are still fighting a war."

Obaid-Chinoy, who also met Indian filmmaker Karan Johar here at WEF, among others, said she has been making films since 2001 and has made films in 12 countries so far in more than 15 years.
"When you look at the work I have done in each of these countries, I have always picked up topics that others have been hesitant to pick up. Because of the work I have done, now when I do something, a lot of people who are empowered look at it immediately," she added.