I'm a storyteller but I'm also a
troublemaker and I have a habit of
asking difficult questions it started
when I was 10 years old and my mother
who is raising six children had no time
for them at 14 fed up with my
increasingly annoying questions she
recommended that I begin writing for the
local english-language newspaper in
Pakistan to put my questions out to the
entire country she said at 17 I was an
undercover investigative journalist I
don't even think my editor knew just how
young I was
when I sent in a story that named and
shamed some very powerful people the man
I'd written about wanted to teach me a
lesson they wanted to shame me and my
family and they spray-painted my name
and my family's name with unspeakable
profanities across a front gate and
around our neighborhood and they felt
that my father who was a strict man of
tradition would stop me instead my
father stood in front of me and said if
you speak the truth I will stand with
you and so will the world and then he
got
and then he got a group of people
together and they whitewashed the walls
I've always wanted my stories to George
people to shake them into having
difficult conversations and I felt that
I would be more effective if I did
something visual and so at 21 I became a
documentary filmmaker turning my camera
onto marginalized communities on the
frontlines in war zones eventually
returning home to Pakistan where I
wanted to document violence against
women Pakistan is home to 200 million
people and with its low levels of
literacy film can change the way people
perceive issues an effective storyteller
speaks to our emotions elicits empathy
and compassion and forces us to look at
things differently in my country film
had the potential to go beyond cinema it
could change lives and the issues that
I've always wanted to raise I've always
wanted to hold up a mirror to society
and they've been driven by my barometer
of anger and my barometer of anger led
me in 2014 to honor killings honor
killings take place in many parts of the
world where men punish women who
transgress rules made by them women who
choose to marry on their own free will
or women who are looking for a divorce
or women who are suspected of having
illicit relationships in the rest of the
world honor killings would be known as
murder I always wanted to tell that
story from the perspective of a survivor
but women do not live to tell their tale
and and instead end up in unmarked
graves so one morning when I was reading
the newspaper and I read that a young
woman had miraculously survived after
being shot in the face by a father and
uncle because she chose to marry
a man out of her free will I knew I had
found my storyteller Sabah was
determined to send her father and her
uncle to jail but in the days after
leaving the hospital pressure mounted on
her to forgive you see there was a
loophole in the law that allowed for
victims to forgive perpetrators enabling
them to avoid jail time and she was told
that she would be ostracized and her
family her in-laws they would all be
shunned from the community because many
felt that her father had been well
within his right
given her transgression she fought on
for months but on the final day in court
she gave a statement forgiving them as
filmmakers we were devastated because
this was not the film that we had set
out to make in hindsight had she pressed
charges for the case and won hers would
have been an exception when such a
strong woman is silenced what chance did
others women have and we began to think
about using our film to change the way
people perceived honor killings to
impact the loophole in the law and then
our film was nominated for an Academy
Award and honor killings became headline
news and the Prime Minister while
sending his congratulations offered to
host the first screening of the film at
his office and of course we jumped at
the chance because no Prime Minister in
the history of the country had ever done
so and at the screening which was
carried live on national television he
said something that reverberated
throughout the country there is no honor
in honor killing he said
at the Academy Awards in LA many of the
pundits had written us off but we felt
that in order for the legislative push
to continue we needed that win and then
my name was announced and I bounded up
the steps in flip-flops because I didn't
expect to be on stage and I accepted the
statue telling a billion people watching
that the Prime Minister of Pakistan had
pledged to change the law because of
course that's one way of holding the
Prime Minister accountable and back home
the Oscar win dominated headline news
and more people joined the fray asking
for the loophole in the law to be closed
and then in October 2016 after months of
campaigning the loophole was indeed
closed and now men who kill women in the
name of Honor receive life imprisonment
yet the very next day a woman was killed
in the name of honor and then another
and another
we had impacted legislation but that
wasn't enough we needed to take the film
and its message to the heartland to
small towns and villages across the
country you see for me cinema can play a
very positive role in changing and
molding society in a positive direction
but how would we get to these places how
would we get to these small towns and
villages we built a mobile cinema a
truck that would roll through the length
and breadth of the country they would
stop in small towns and villages we
outfitted it with a large screen that
would light up the night sky
and we called it look but with love it
would give the community an opportunity
to come together and watch films in the
evening we knew we could attract men and
children in the mobile cinema they would
come out and watch but what about women
in these small rural communities that
are segregated how would we get women to
come out we had to work with prevailing
cultural norms in order to do so and so
we built a cinema inside the cinema
outfitting it with seats and a screen
where women could go inside and watch
without fearing or being embarrassed or
harassment and we began to introduce
everyone to films that opened up their
minds to competing worldviews
encouraging children to build critical
thinking so that they could ask
questions and we expanded us go beyond
honor killings talking about income
inequality the environment talking about
real ethnic relations religious
tolerance and compassion and inside for
women we showed them films in which they
were heroes not victims and we told them
how they could navigate the court system
the police system educating them about
their rights telling them where they
could seek refuge if there were victims
of domestic violence where they could go
and get help we were surprised that we
were welcomed in so many of the places
that we went to many of the places had
never seen many of the towns had never
seen television or social media and
there were eager for their children to
to learn but there was also push back
and blow back with the ideas that we
were bringing with us to members of our
mobile cinema team resigned because of
threats from villages and in one of the
village that we were screening in they
shut it down and said they didn't want
the women to know about their rights but
on the flipside in another village when
a screening was shut down a plainclothes
policeman got up and ordered it back on
and stood by protecting our team telling
everyone that it was his duty to expose
the young minds
to an alternative worldview and to this
content he was an ordinary hero but
we've come across so many of these
heroes on our journey in another town
where the men said that only they could
watch and the women had to stay home a
community elder got up got a group of
people together had a discussion and
then both men and women sat down to
watch together we are documenting what
we are doing we talk to people we adapt
we change the lineup of films when we
show men films that show perpetrators of
violence behind bars we want to hit home
the fact that if men are violent there
will be repercussions but we also show
films in courage where men are seen as
championing women because we want to
encourage them to take on those roles
for women when we show them films in
which they are heads of state or whether
where there are lawyers and doctors and
in leadership positions we talk to them
and encourage them to step into those
roles we are changing the way people in
these villages interact and we're taking
our learnings into other places recently
a group contacted us and wants to take a
mobile cinema to Bangladesh and Syria
and we're sharing our learnings with
them we feel it's really important to
take what we are doing and spread it
across the world in small towns and
villages across Pakistan men are
changing the way they interact with
women children are changing the way they
see the world one village at a time
through cinema thank you
[Applause]