Breaking New Grounds
By Ayesha K.

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy has become somewhat of a celebrity in Pakistani circles: at twenty-six, she has made documentaries on the rise of religious fundamentalism in the northern regions of Pakistan, how Pakistanis viewed the U.S. Presidential race, and on the everyday life of Saudi women. Apart from the fact that she has courageously taken on these sensitive topics, Sharmeen proved her skills as a filmmaker by securing regular screenings of her documentaries on the Discovery Times Channel and PBS Frontline World, and winning accolades from the New York Times, who said, "A first-time filmmaker, Ms. Obaid is compassionate but not sentimental". In June 2005, she became first non-American to be awarded the prestigious Livingston Award.

Born in Karachi in 1978, Sharmeen credits both her city and parents for giving her the freedom to explore topics that piqued her curiosity. EGO had a little tete-a-tete with Sharmeen to understand what drives this Pakistani phenomenon and how she perceives Islam's place in the modern world, and the role of women in that world.

Describe your most recent documentary, Women of the Holy Kingdom.
It is true that some sort of reform is in the air for women in the Middle East. In Kuwait, women have been granted the right to vote, in Saudi Arabia women are being allowed to own their own businesses so these are encouraging signs. Unfortunately, very little media attention was being paid to these sorts of advances and I wanted to document these changes. Women of the Holy Kingdom is my personal journey to Saudi Arabia to examine the growing women's movement there and to explore the reforms being initiated by the Royal Family.

	Sharmeen Obaid Website

How did you like Saudi Arabia? Do you think it is excessively backward when it comes to women's rights?
It took me about 4 months to get access to Saudi Arabia. Apparently my film was going to be the first film about women's rights in the country and the government wanted to thoroughly vet the proposal before giving me access. But when I finally made it into the country, it was very rewarding. Saudi Arabia is a very difficult place to film, women seldom leave their homes unaccompanied by men and when they do, they are covered in head to foot in their black cloaks and do not take too well to television cameras. So it took time to convince the women to speak to me and to get access to their lives.

But it was worth it, because a lot of these women are anxious to bring about changes, they are lobbying the government and the clerics to gain more rights and I think to an extent they are succeeding. Saudi Arabia is unlike any other Muslim country because of the extreme segregation in society which was hard for me to swallow at first and something which had a hard time dealing with even after I had spent 6 weeks there. Men and women have separate entrances in office buildings, restaurants, shopping malls etc and the religious police is on hand to make sure that people comply. But despite this I found young men and women using mobile phones to communicate with each other in malls, in Jeddah there were home restaurants that allowed men and women (who aren't not related to each other) to eat together, but of course there's always this fear that one will get caught and get hauled off to jail!!

I do think Saudi Arabia is excessively backwards when it comes to women's rights and that's because of the Arab culture. In Riyadh, a young journalist aptly summed up the Saudi mentality for me saying that "we may have shopping malls, we may drive BMW's and use modern technology and cell phones, but our mind is still that of a Bedouin living in a tent" and he could not have been more right. Saudi women still have a long way to go because a large segment of both men and women don't want to see change in society.

"Reform may be in the air in Saudi Arabia, yet as Pakistani filmmaker Sharmen Obaid discovered on a recent trip to the kingdom, reform there is a relative term. In her fascinating film, what passes for progress to Saudiwomen is permission to work in manufacturing -" Wall Street Journal

Some people think you choose to exaggerate the problems in Islam because it gets you press at a time when Muslim-bashing is controversial and popular. What would you say to your critics?
Actually I have two types of critics, on one hand I have people who say that I show the rise of fundamentalism in Pakistan which creates a bad image for Pakistan. On the other hand, people say that I show Pakistan to be a very modern country by filming fashion shows, rock concerts and plays like Vagina Monologues. So i'm a little perplexed!! I'm a journalist, and as a journalist I have to show both sides of the story. My films don't bash Muslims at all, we all know Islam is being hijacked by a group of people who claim to be Muslims, but in reality they are just terrorists using Islam for their personal gain which is the message two of my films convey (Terror's Children, Re-inventing the Taliban) I have received hundreds of emails from Pakistanis and others who say that my work reflects the reality on the ground in Pakistan.

What, in your opinion, is the fundamental problem facing Islam today? Is it in need of a reformation, philosophical and ideological?
I think most of the problems facing Islam today stems from two basic issues: education and the economy. There are very few Muslim countries that are educating their youth. I mean real education, not the type you get at a madrassah. Without education, the basic structure of society changes and there can never be progress. Look at Pakistan, look at Afghanistan, look at countries like Syria, Libya etc. How much of the budget is spent on education? Also look at the economics of the Muslim world, countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Egypt where unemployment rates are high and where disillusioned youths roam the streets looking to while away their time. These are the very people who get recruited to extremist organizations. I think if we fix these two problems in some way we will reform the Muslim world.

Islam doesn't need reform, it's the Muslims who do!!

"Sharmeen Obaid not only looks at the reality of the existence of the radical Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan but also shows that their aggressive agenda may not last too long." The Hindu (India)

Do you face any challenges being a documentary maker who is Muslim, a woman and from Pakistan?
I've always been taught not to look at my race and gender as a factor in anything. And that's how I work, I never think of myself as a women journalist, I think of myself as a journalist. I don't only think of myself as a Pakistani, I think of myself as a citizen of the world. I think that kind of thinking opens up many doors for me. Of course, that said, there are many many things that I do as a Muslim woman that perhaps a Muslim man would not be able to get away with!!

Michael Moore is out rightly and unabashedly subject in his documentaries. Do you think that it's okay for documentaries to nudge the viewer towards a particular point of view?
I think that each filmmaker has a point of view, whether they admit it outwardly or not. That is the very reason a filmmaker makes a documentary film. Some like Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock are subjective, while others make their point of view just more subtly.

What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
I was at Smith College when the tragic events of 9/11 took place. At that time I was freelancing for newspapers (in the U.S. and Canada) and studying politics as an undergraduate when I decided to make a major career change, I realized that writing articles about the Muslim world was not enough because my readers in the United States could seldom imagine the conditions, environment I was talking about, so I turned to documentary filmmaking, as a way to make Americans understand what life is like in the Muslim world. And once I began documenting real life stories, I was hooked!!

When i'm in the field meeting people, interviewing them, filming them, I forget what the outside world is like, because the people I profile and work with, become my world for those few weeks or months. I'm passionate about meeting new people and seeing the world through their eyes. I find that quite addictive actually. Whether it's the soldiers in Kashmir or the Afghan refugee children I profile in my films, each character allows me into his or her world and I get to see that point of view (it doesn't matter whether I agree with their point of view or not). This is what motivates me and pushes me to go on. I am most creative when im left on my own in the field to wonder around, meet people, speak to them without interference from the authorities.

What are you working on now?
I am just completing a short film for Channel 4 (U.K.) in Pakistan. The piece explores the Pakistan army's efforts at curbing extremism in the country.

Images courtesy Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy