Amid all the glitz and glamour of Sunday night’s 84th Annual Academy Awards, the ceremony touched on a serious issue that affects women when it honored the new Pakistani documentary Saving Face. Pakistani Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and co-director Daniel Junge took home an Oscar for Best Documentary (Short Subject) for the film.
The 40-minute documentary explores the horrible acid attacks perpetrated on over 100 Pakistani women per year. The victims of these attacks are left physically and emotionally scarred; their attackers are often never brought to justice.
Saving Face follows London-based, Pakistani-born plastic surgeon Dr. Mohammad Jawad as he performs reconstructive surgery on two acid-attack victims, Zakia and Rukhsana. Zakia, 39, had acid thrown on her by her husband after she filed for divorced from him, while Rukhsana, 23, was set on fire by her husband and in-laws. The documentary also touches on how Pakistan is responding to these attacks as a nation.
I know that it will anger me to see the level of cruelty that the human race is capable of, and sadden me to see these women suffer through such vicious attacks, but I know that I should see this film, if only to remind myself that women are fighting for their rights all around the globe.
Saving Face airs March 8 at 8:30 ET on HBO. BUST intern Sarah was able to catch a screening of Saving Face earlier this month; her review will be up before the HBO premiere.
Will you tune in to see this documentary?
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWrk-brFCrY 425×344]e
Saving Face [official website]
(Image Credit: allvoices.com)
