Event

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is an Academy Award and Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker. Her recent films include SAVING FACE, TRANSGENDERS: PAKISTAN’S OPEN SECRET AND PAKISTAN’S TALIBAN GENERATION, which aired on PBS, Channel 4, CBC, SBS and Arte and was the recipient of the Alfred I Dupont Award as well as The Association for International Broadcasting award.

Sharmeen has made over a dozen-multi award winning films in over 10 countries around the world and is the first non-American to be awarded the Livingston Award for best international reporting.  In 2012 Time Magazine included her in the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In 2007, Sharmeen was awarded the broadcast journalist of the year award in the UK by One World Media for her work in a series of documentary films for Channel 4, which included a film about xenophobia in South Africa THE NEW APARTHEID and AFGHANISTAN UNVEILED. Her other films have been awarded The Overseas Press Club Award, The American Women in Radio and Television Award, The Cine Golden Eagle award and the Banff Rockie Award. 

Sharmeen’s work centers around human rights and women’s issues and she has worked with refugees and marginalized communities from Saudi Arabia to Syria and from Timor Leste to the Philippines.

Sharmeen was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan and received a bachelors degree from Smith College and two masters degrees from Stanford University. She now divides her time between Canada and Pakistan.

* Global Distinguished Lecture, co-sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies, Africa Center, South Asia Center, and Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Penn Cinema Studies, Annenberg Center for Global Communications Studies, Penn School of Social Policy and Practice, Penn Department of Religious Studies, Penn Women's Studies, Smith College Alumni Club of Philadelphia