Speaker 1: Bushkin. I may have Higgins and this is solvable. Interviews
Speaker 1: with the world's most innovative thinkers working to solve the
Speaker 1: world's biggest problems. My solvable is I want to change
Speaker 1: the way men and women see themselves through film. That's
Speaker 1: Charmine Obichnoi. She is a journalist, a filmmaker, and an activist,
Speaker 1: oh and a two time Oscar winner. Gender based violence
Speaker 1: happens in all societies, regardless of income, class, and culture,
Speaker 1: but Charmine is Pakistani and she makes much of her
Speaker 1: work there. Pakistan sees thousands of cases of violence against
Speaker 1: women every year, from rape and acid attacks to sexual assault, kidnappings,
Speaker 1: and so called honor killings. There's a growing movement to
Speaker 1: tackle this. The country's top judge announced earlier this year
Speaker 1: that more than one thousand courts dedicated to tackling violence
Speaker 1: against women are going to be set up. A pilot
Speaker 1: court of this kind was opened in twenty seventeen in Punjab,
Speaker 1: Pakistan's most populous province. Local High Court Chief Justice Monsour
Speaker 1: Ali Shah said at the time that women were the
Speaker 1: most vulnerable members of society and that one in every
Speaker 1: three had been a victim of physical or psychological violence.
Speaker 1: Our Guest Today shares the same goal as Judge Shah,
Speaker 1: changing the way women are treated in Pakistan, but she
Speaker 1: uses a different medium. Film. Charmine's films have been hugely influential,
Speaker 1: raising awareness and bringing about legislative change. In her Oscar
Speaker 1: winning film A Girl in the River, Charmine tells the
Speaker 1: story of Saba Quisera, a young woman who survived an
Speaker 1: attempted murder at the hands of her father. In her
Speaker 1: Oscar acceptance speech, Charmine held the then primestair of Pakistan
Speaker 1: to account for doing something about it, and that actually
Speaker 1: led to changes in laws protecting women. But Charmaine didn't
Speaker 1: just want like international audiences to understand the problem. She
Speaker 1: wanted to take it to the people most affected. Herself
Speaker 1: and her team have built a mobile cinema on a truck,
Speaker 1: and they drive it to communities throughout Pakistan, especially where
Speaker 1: honor killings are most prevalent, and they host screenings of
Speaker 1: A Girl in the River and they discuss the changes
Speaker 1: in the law and how women can advocate for themselves.
Speaker 1: They show other films too, films to tackle income inequality
Speaker 1: and climate change, and ethnic relations and religious tolerance as
Speaker 1: well as two Oscars. Charmaine has received six Emmys, and
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, the government of Pakistan honored her with
Speaker 1: the Crescent of Excellence, which is the second highest civilian
Speaker 1: honor of the country, and Time magazine named her one
Speaker 1: of the one hundred most influential people in the world.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen into her conversation with Ahmed Ali Akbar.
Speaker 1: So what is the problem for you and why is
Speaker 1: it something that you want to address the problem is
Speaker 1: that men don't see women as their equals, and I
Speaker 1: feel that film can change that. It can change their outlook,
Speaker 1: it can change the relationship between a man and a woman,
Speaker 1: it can change the way they see the potential of
Speaker 1: a woman. And bringing films into communities and opening up
Speaker 1: the minds of men and women to the potential of
Speaker 1: a woman, I feel cinema can change that. So tell
Speaker 1: me about the culture of honor killings in Pakistan. Pakistan
Speaker 1: is a deeply patriarchal, misogynistic country and you have forces
Speaker 1: that are pushing and pulling against each other. Now with
Speaker 1: this generation of young women who are educated, who want
Speaker 1: rights for themselves, who want to make decisions about their lives,
Speaker 1: and they don't want their fathers and their brothers and
Speaker 1: their husbands to do that for them, And so more
Speaker 1: and more women find themselves standing up and asking for
Speaker 1: their rights and saying no to things that they don't
Speaker 1: want to do, and the men, the old God is
Speaker 1: pushing back. They don't want to give up the space
Speaker 1: that they have, and so more and more women are
Speaker 1: finding themselves being victims of domestic violence or being killed
Speaker 1: in the name of honor. Honor is this word that
Speaker 1: is used and thrown a lot around a lot in Pakistan,
Speaker 1: and the concept is that the honor of a woman
Speaker 1: rests with the man, and there are all of these
Speaker 1: unwritten rules that if a woman transgresses some invisible line,
Speaker 1: that there will be repercussions for her. For example, a
Speaker 1: woman asking for a divorce her husband might think that
Speaker 1: she's dishonoring him and may kill her in the name
Speaker 1: of honor. A daughter decides to get married to a
Speaker 1: man of her own, choosing a father decides she's dishonoring
Speaker 1: him and kills her. So there is no one reason
Speaker 1: why women are killed in the name of honor. Women
Speaker 1: are killed in the name of honor because men decide
Speaker 1: that a woman has crossed a line and she deserves
Speaker 1: to be punished, and they're shot, dismembered, buried in unmarked
Speaker 1: graves and the names are forever forgotten. Tell me about
Speaker 1: what is it about this problem of honor killing that
Speaker 1: made you decide that you wanted to tackle it in
Speaker 1: your films. In order to change the way men see women,
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring films into the mix. I wanted
Speaker 1: men to see women not as victims, but as survivors,
Speaker 1: as heroes, as women in power, as women who fight back.
Speaker 1: And the story is a women that I've chosen to
Speaker 1: tell are exactly those sort of women. Women who are
Speaker 1: climb mountains, women who are part of the anti terrorism squad,
Speaker 1: women who have stood up against men and fought and one.
Speaker 1: And those are the stories that we're capturing on cinema.
Speaker 1: And we've built a mobile cinema in Pakistan to take
Speaker 1: those stories into towns and villages who will never have
Speaker 1: access to those kind of films. In order to change
Speaker 1: the way men see women, in order to change the
Speaker 1: way women are treated, you have to get men to
Speaker 1: accept women as their equal. You have to get them
Speaker 1: to look at them and see their worth. And film
Speaker 1: is one way of opening their eyes to it. And
Speaker 1: we're starting at a very young age. We're starting with
Speaker 1: schools and you know, with community centers, and then into
Speaker 1: villages and then into towns. And with each film screening
Speaker 1: that we do, we ask the question, do you think
Speaker 1: women should go out and work? Do you think women
Speaker 1: should study? Do you think your mother has the right
Speaker 1: at home? Do you think your sisters should have the
Speaker 1: right to choose a man to marry? You know, these
Speaker 1: are questions which might seem to the rest of the
Speaker 1: world is so basic, but so important to ask in
Speaker 1: a country like Pakistan, because change is not going to
Speaker 1: come with simply just changing laws. Change is going to
Speaker 1: come when you change the way people see things and
Speaker 1: accept things. So you were able to actually show your
Speaker 1: film A Girl on the River with navashar If, previous
Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Pakistan. Can you talk to me about
Speaker 1: what that was like taking your story to the highest
Speaker 1: level of government and sort of what impact and conversations.
Speaker 1: It started in twenty sixteen when I did A Girl
Speaker 1: in the River The Price of Forgiveness, which was a
Speaker 1: film about honor killings. The film was nominated for an
Speaker 1: Academy Award and the Prime Minister, as part of his
Speaker 1: congratulatory note to me, said that he would love to
Speaker 1: screen the film in his office, and so I've immediately
Speaker 1: jumped at the opportunity because as a filmmaker, we were
Speaker 1: desperately my team and I were trying to change and
Speaker 1: impact a loophole in the law in the honor killing
Speaker 1: law in Pakistan, and so we felt that if we
Speaker 1: were to screen for the Prime Minister, the right kind
Speaker 1: of attention would be given to the subject of the
Speaker 1: film and perhaps help us get the lakoon and the
Speaker 1: law closed. And so I accepted, and I went to
Speaker 1: see the Prime Minister and we had a conversation and
Speaker 1: he said, why don't we screen the film after the
Speaker 1: Academy Awards. And I thought to myself, well, if I
Speaker 1: don't win, this might never happen. So I pushed for
Speaker 1: the screening of the film to take place before I
Speaker 1: left for La, and he screened for his entire cabinet,
Speaker 1: and at the screening he said something very important which
Speaker 1: was televised live across the country, that there is no
Speaker 1: honor and honor killing, and he pledged to change the
Speaker 1: law on it. And I went off to La and
Speaker 1: we won the Academy Award, and then in my acceptance speech,
Speaker 1: I told the billion people watching that the Prime Minister
Speaker 1: of Pakistan had pledged to change the law. Because nothing
Speaker 1: like holding the prime minister accountable in front of billions
Speaker 1: of people. So when I came back to Pakistan, I
Speaker 1: worked with the government and with the other activists who
Speaker 1: had been laying the groundwork for the passage of the law.
Speaker 1: And I think our film played a small role in
Speaker 1: lighting kind of having this lightning rod effect in pushing
Speaker 1: this legislation forward. And in October twenty sixteen, the lacuna
Speaker 1: and the law that we wanted changed closed so that
Speaker 1: men could no longer be forgiven if they committed on
Speaker 1: our killings that they would have to spend a lifetime
Speaker 1: in jail. And of course it was a great victory
Speaker 1: for us, but the very next day a woman was
Speaker 1: killed in the name of honor, and then another and another,
Speaker 1: and we began to think about the fact that passage
Speaker 1: of the law was one thing, but we really needed
Speaker 1: to work on changing the way men saw women and
Speaker 1: changing the way people saw on our killings. Wow, and
Speaker 1: that's shocking considering the movement that the anti honor killing
Speaker 1: activism has made in the law that in a practical level,
Speaker 1: the effect is not being felt for the women of Pakistan.
Speaker 1: You cannot change things simply by changing laws. You have
Speaker 1: to change people's mindsets. You have to change the entire
Speaker 1: culture of who a woman is, what is her place
Speaker 1: in society, what is her worth. We still have young
Speaker 1: girls in homes who are fed food after the young
Speaker 1: boys are fed food. You still have young girls staying
Speaker 1: home so that their brothers can go to school. You
Speaker 1: still have young girls being married off when they're literally children.
Speaker 1: So when you have a society which doesn't value a
Speaker 1: woman's life, when you have a society which thinks that
Speaker 1: women are expendable, then honor killings will of course take
Speaker 1: root in that kind of a society. And you can
Speaker 1: make as many laws as possible, But unless you address
Speaker 1: the issue of how men see women and how women
Speaker 1: see themselves, women have to see that they too can
Speaker 1: fight back, that they too have a voice, that they
Speaker 1: too have the courage to stand up and be part
Speaker 1: of a movement that makes them feel that they are worthwhile,
Speaker 1: that they're not expendable. So many women in Pakistan do
Speaker 1: not report violence because they think that nothing is going
Speaker 1: to happen if they report it. That mindset has to change,
Speaker 1: and in order to do that, you have to change
Speaker 1: popular culture. You have to invest yourself on the grassroots
Speaker 1: in order to bring about a change in thinking. And
Speaker 1: it's great that we have laws now that protect women,
Speaker 1: but the people who implement those laws need to know
Speaker 1: about them, and more and more men need to be
Speaker 1: sent to prison so that they can be made examples
Speaker 1: of If a man kills a woman in a town
Speaker 1: and the neighbors know about it, that he's not gone
Speaker 1: to jail, there'll be other men who will feel embolded
Speaker 1: to carry on in his footsteps because they know that
Speaker 1: this is not a crime punishable by law. So what
Speaker 1: are some things that can be done to actually reduce
Speaker 1: this level of threat towards women. I think change does
Speaker 1: not come overnight, and it takes a long time. When
Speaker 1: women are empowered, when they're educated, when they know their rights,
Speaker 1: they have a voice and can fight back. And now
Speaker 1: you find that more and more women are choosing to
Speaker 1: do that. They are choosing to stand up both online
Speaker 1: and offline, to ask for their rights. They are choosing
Speaker 1: to say that no, this will not happen under my watch.
Speaker 1: I do not agree with this. They're making themselves more
Speaker 1: aware of their potential and what they can go forward
Speaker 1: and do. It's not going to happen overnight, but film
Speaker 1: will play a pivotal role in the way women see
Speaker 1: their potential. Television in Pakistan the mobile phone, which has
Speaker 1: streaming films and televison shows. More and more women have
Speaker 1: access to that now and they've a window to the
Speaker 1: outside world, and that is really helping the way they
Speaker 1: see themselves. The Internet is an equalizer and it's allowing women,
Speaker 1: even in small towns and villagers, to have conversations with
Speaker 1: other women about what's happening in their homes, what's happening
Speaker 1: around them, asking for advice on what to do, on
Speaker 1: how to get out of a situation. Facebook groups are starting,
Speaker 1: chat rooms are starting where women are conversing with each
Speaker 1: other and that has never happened before. And it's going
Speaker 1: to be a while before you see the reduction in numbers,
Speaker 1: but I think that we've taken a first, very important
Speaker 1: step in getting women aware that they can fight back.
Speaker 1: One really amazing thing that you do is these mobile
Speaker 1: cinemas you set up. Tell me about the process of
Speaker 1: putting together these mobile cinemas and the impact they've had.
Speaker 1: I've been making films for well over two decades, and
Speaker 1: I began to think a few years ago about who
Speaker 1: was watching these films. Were the people who needed to
Speaker 1: watch it the most? Did they have access to these films?
Speaker 1: Would they understand those are the people that needed to
Speaker 1: watch these women champions? They were the people who needed
Speaker 1: to watch men championing women in these films. And so
Speaker 1: how would I be able to get into towns and
Speaker 1: villagers to host screenings and take my work there and
Speaker 1: take the work of other filmmakers there. And after months
Speaker 1: of brainstorming, we came up with designing a mobile cinema,
Speaker 1: a large truck that's outfitted with the screen that lights
Speaker 1: up the night sky and brings people out together in
Speaker 1: the evenings to watch content together and to have discussions
Speaker 1: around it. But Pakistan is a country where you know,
Speaker 1: in some areas men and women can sit down and
Speaker 1: watch films together, but in other areas they cannot. And
Speaker 1: so inside the truck we outfitted it with seats and
Speaker 1: another screen so that if we were a screening in
Speaker 1: a conservative area, women could actually watch inside the truck
Speaker 1: while the men could be watching outside and we could
Speaker 1: be showing two totally different films to two totally different audiences.
Speaker 1: And over the last two years, my mobile cinema has
Speaker 1: gone to over four hundred locations across Pakistan and we've
Speaker 1: had incredible feedback from the communities that we've been showing
Speaker 1: the films in. We've been invited back again and again,
Speaker 1: and even in communities where there's been a pushback where
Speaker 1: they have said that we don't want our women to
Speaker 1: watch these films because we don't want them to know
Speaker 1: about their rights, there have been other people who've stepped
Speaker 1: up and said no, it's important to educate our women
Speaker 1: and our children and even our men. And we found
Speaker 1: that one mobile cinema is not enough. That we need
Speaker 1: dozens of these cinemas across the country because people are
Speaker 1: beginning to realize that these vehicles open up the entire
Speaker 1: world to them. So, when you're in those situations where
Speaker 1: you know men are pushing back against the mobile cinemas
Speaker 1: and the information you're giving to women about their rights
Speaker 1: and their value, how do you address that. I've always
Speaker 1: found that communities have to accept you in order for
Speaker 1: you to bring change, in order for you to introduce
Speaker 1: films in order for you to bring the mobile cinema.
Speaker 1: And so when a community decides that they don't want
Speaker 1: us there, we try and work with partners, nonprofits that
Speaker 1: may have worked in that community before, or a community
Speaker 1: leader that might be more open to us coming in,
Speaker 1: and we use that vehicle to get into that community.
Speaker 1: So we have had, you know, situations where the team
Speaker 1: has been asked to leave, but other people have stepped
Speaker 1: in and said, let's screen, or we've been asked to
Speaker 1: leave and we've left that day, you know, to fight
Speaker 1: the battle another day. The idea is to make the
Speaker 1: community comfortable, to make them understand that what we're doing
Speaker 1: will benefit the children because we're showing them films about
Speaker 1: how to become a firefighter, or what the world looks
Speaker 1: like outside their tiny village. We're showing them films that
Speaker 1: talk about rights and equality, about climate change, about science,
Speaker 1: about travel, films that they wouldn't normally watch. And so
Speaker 1: some of these ideas are new to them and ideas
Speaker 1: that they're afraid of. But if you spend enough time
Speaker 1: with them, you convince a few people in the community
Speaker 1: that matter. In the community. The mobile cinema is eventually
Speaker 1: always allowed back in. Do you plan out discussions or
Speaker 1: do you sort of let them happen naturally. I have
Speaker 1: this wonderful team of young men actually who travel with
Speaker 1: the Mobile Cinema and who are committed to going from
Speaker 1: town to town and village to village. They carry with
Speaker 1: them these feedback forms that are designed so that they
Speaker 1: can ask the participants who have been their random sampling
Speaker 1: of them, you know, about the content that they've seen,
Speaker 1: about some of the messaging in the films, about the
Speaker 1: way they see the world. And we use these feedback
Speaker 1: forms and collate the data from it to see and
Speaker 1: track what content has resonated with the participants and the people,
Speaker 1: what films have opened up their eyes, which films may
Speaker 1: have not had the same impact that we thought that
Speaker 1: they would. It's you know, it's for us. It's a
Speaker 1: learning mechanism as well. It's not something that we have
Speaker 1: you know known, you know, this is uncharted territory for
Speaker 1: us as well. We're learning as we go along. We're
Speaker 1: creating films as we go along, We're changing the feedback
Speaker 1: forms as we go along, and so with each screening
Speaker 1: we learned something new. Initially, it was hard for us
Speaker 1: to screen for women. You know, we wanted to get
Speaker 1: into the community and screen for the men and the
Speaker 1: children first gain their trust, then ask the women in
Speaker 1: the community to come out and watch the films. You know,
Speaker 1: I live in work in Pakistan. My end game is forever,
Speaker 1: and so I need to make sure that I build bridges,
Speaker 1: that I work with communities that trust me and my team,
Speaker 1: and that's very important to do. So. I found the
Speaker 1: guides that you made really informative. You created fourteen of them.
Speaker 1: How did you decide which topics to choose? When we
Speaker 1: began to think about agahi, which means awareness the series
Speaker 1: as a whole, we wanted to start from the basic
Speaker 1: to the most complex, and so our very first video
Speaker 1: was how to file a police report, and then we
Speaker 1: began to think about other topics domestic violence, inheritance, acid violence,
Speaker 1: honor killing, sexual harassment, and each video was building upon
Speaker 1: the previous video. We wanted to introduce different facets to women,
Speaker 1: and it's an ongoing project. While we've created fourteen films,
Speaker 1: we're looking at other topics that women may want help about,
Speaker 1: may not have clarity about, and it is important for
Speaker 1: women to know what their legal rights are. So at
Speaker 1: least that they're aware of their legal rights and where
Speaker 1: they can go to get help if they need to.
Speaker 1: And that series has been distributed for free across the country,
Speaker 1: and we're showing those films two other young women because
Speaker 1: young women need to see themselves reflected on screen. They
Speaker 1: need to see their potential. They need to know that
Speaker 1: other women have done this so I too can do this,
Speaker 1: and that is very important. We've also made the videos
Speaker 1: such that if women are not literate, they just have
Speaker 1: to hear something and take things away from it. The
Speaker 1: films have been screening across the country in schools and colleges,
Speaker 1: and earlier this year, at a women's march to mark
Speaker 1: International Women's Day in Karachi, a young woman came up
Speaker 1: to me and said that a video that we had
Speaker 1: done about domestic violence had saved her life and that
Speaker 1: she had finally known that she could go and ask
Speaker 1: for divorce. And that's what we're hoping to do, just
Speaker 1: hoping to use these films to educate women so that
Speaker 1: they can understand what their way out is, what their
Speaker 1: rights are, what they can do. So many young women
Speaker 1: that we've shown the film too had no idea what
Speaker 1: their marriage contract is about In Pakistan, when you sign
Speaker 1: your marriage certificate, at most times the right of divorce
Speaker 1: is scratched out and taken away from a woman, which
Speaker 1: is actually against the law. And so when we made
Speaker 1: a film about the rights of marriage, we made sure
Speaker 1: to tell women that when they sign their marriage certificate
Speaker 1: that they should retain the right to divorce. And most
Speaker 1: women have thought that they didn't even have the right
Speaker 1: to divorce or that it was automatically taken away from them.
Speaker 1: And so educating young girls, especially about these things will
Speaker 1: change the way they see themselves and the way they
Speaker 1: interact with people around them. So what are some takeaways
Speaker 1: of things that listeners can do. I would love to
Speaker 1: replicate the mobile cinema, both in Pakistan but also outside
Speaker 1: of Pakistan. So if anybody has a community an area
Speaker 1: where they think that the mobile cinemas needed, I would
Speaker 1: love to bring the idea, the blueprint and transfer that
Speaker 1: to them. And I think that that would be a
Speaker 1: wonderful way to take our learnings and to take that
Speaker 1: to other places. I would love people to watch my
Speaker 1: films and share the messages of the films and the
Speaker 1: stories that come out of it. But there's so many
Speaker 1: other activists around the world, including Pakistan, who are pushing
Speaker 1: the envelope and learn about their work. Learn about the
Speaker 1: work of Rakshandanas who is changing child marriage in Pakistan.
Speaker 1: Learn the work about Summer Manella who's working on issues
Speaker 1: about the girl child Malala and the work that she's
Speaker 1: doing on girl's education, and the bassamad Nan who's working
Speaker 1: on domestic violence and women in Pakistan in the northern areas.
Speaker 1: Another takeaway that I would love people to go with
Speaker 1: is that never underestimate the power of cinema and the
Speaker 1: way it can change the way children see the world.
Speaker 1: So take films out into communities, take them to a
Speaker 1: local school which is less privileged, take them to a
Speaker 1: community center, spend time with the children, show them films
Speaker 1: that will open up their minds and their ideas to
Speaker 1: the potential of the world. Because I've seen in my
Speaker 1: own life and in my own career how that has happened,
Speaker 1: and it can change the way the entire world works.
Speaker 1: Charmaine obeyed Tony and her incredible work making and distributing
Speaker 1: life changing films, and if you missed it before, as
Speaker 1: she said, you can see and share her work yourself.
Speaker 1: As well as other brilliant communicators working in the same area.
Speaker 1: Her Mobile Cinema has toured some of the most remote
Speaker 1: and poverty stricten regions of Pakistan, with particular focus on
Speaker 1: accessing conflict prone regions and the most vulnerable communities. The
Speaker 1: main ambition of the Mobile Cinema project was to spark
Speaker 1: conversations questioning pre existing social norms and policies and the
Speaker 1: supporting environment while spreading a message of hope, peace and tolerance. Well,
Speaker 1: the proof is in the pudding. I hope you say
Speaker 1: that expression in America. What I mean is her team
Speaker 1: have recently heard from organizers in Bangladesh and also in
Speaker 1: Syria who are hoping to bring the mobile Cinema there,
Speaker 1: and they've begun to plan how best to do just that.
Speaker 1: Solvable is a collaboration between Pushkin Industries and the Rockefella Foundation,
Speaker 1: with production by Laura Hyde, Hester Kant, Laura Sheeter, and
Speaker 1: Ruth Barnes from Chalk and Blade. Pushkin's executive producer is
Speaker 1: Neia LaBelle, Research by Sheer, Vincent, engineering by Jason Gambrel
Speaker 1: and the great folks at GSI Studios. Original music composed
Speaker 1: by pass Wise and special thanks to Maggie Taylor, Heather Fine,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, Carl Migliori, Jacob Weisberg, and Malcolm Gladwell. You
Speaker 1: can learn more about solving today's biggest problems at Rockefeller
Speaker 1: Foundation dot org slash solvable. I'm Mave Higgins, now got
Speaker 1: solverle