Afrah Jamal

First Published in Daily Times /Saturday, March 17, 2012 Elegiac laments for a fading film industry are interrupted midway with news that could give the documentary film medium at least a new lease of life . It owes its resurrection to a young filmmaker, who mined troubling sound-bytes overheard in theatres where war, injustice or social disparity reigns supreme. Clips aired at the third Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) held earlier this year provided glimpses of her work, including the internationally acclaimed ‘Saving Face’. At the time, she had an Emmy stacked away for one documentary and was just weeks away from winning an Academy Award for another. At the time, she had been relentlessly crusading to rid societies of those anachronistic practices (among other ills) that weigh them down in the modern world. And — despite these glittering credentials — her work was largely unknown amongst Pakistanis. The young Oscar nominee who took the stage that day would soon be the face o...