Pakistan’s leading filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has launched a platform to empower women storytellers and filmmakers in the country. The two-time Oscar-winning director has announced newly formed grants and mentorship programs called Patakha Pictures
Taking to the social media on Thursday, Obaid-Chinoy announced the launch of the new platform. "Telling stories that matter is important to me and I also know how hard it is to find the finances and mentorship to do so. At SOC Films we routinely get emails, calls and visits from young women across Pakistan who want to be able to tell their stories."
"Today I'm launching a platform that I hope will help them do so. A small grants and mentorship program for female filmmakers across Pakistan who want to work in short form storytelling. I hope in a few years from now this platform will enable a filmmaker to represent our country at The Academy," she wrote.
Obaid-Chinoy’s SOC Films has produced Oscar-winning documentary A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, for which she bag her second Academy award. She won her first Oscar with the documentary Saving Face released in 2012.
The filmmaker also launched White In The Flag — a multi-year project aimed at highlighting the minorities in Pakistan and uplifting their stories.
As per reports, the funding cycle in Patakha Pictures will start from October 2021 and the final decisions will be announced in January 2022.
