The screening was followed by a panel discussion, where Sharmeen Obaid spoke about the concept behind the animated short film.
Last year, two-time Academy Award and three-time Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s latest animated short film, titled Sitara: Let Girls Dream, premiered in theaters in New York.
This was followed by the news that the animated film would be screened at the Los Angeles Animation Festival 2019 (LAAF). It was also announced that Sitara: Let Girls Dream will be released on Netflix this year. It will be Pakistan’s first animated project to make it to the streaming site that will be available in over 190 countries.
Recently, Gucci returned to Sundance Film Festival this year for its ‘Chime for Change’ initiative, surrounding a campaign entitled #LetGirlsDream, where the brand screened Sitara: Let Girls Dream.
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy took to social media to share the news. “Gucci hosted a special Chime For Change film screening for over 200 people of our latest animated short film, Sitara: Let Girls Dream at the Sundance Film Festival last week,” she wrote on her official Instagram handle.
“This was followed by a panel discussion on the subject of gender equality,” noted Sharmeen adding that the panel discussion was moderated by Vice News correspondent Paola Ramos, and included Ariel Wengroff (Executive Producer) and Yasmeen Hassan (Global Executive Director, Equality Now) besides Sharmeen.
Written and directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Sitara chronicles the life of a 14-year old girl, Pari, whose dream of being a pilot is crushed when she is forced into child marriage. Sitara: Let Girls Dream is a silent film that takes the audience on a journey through the old city of Lahore and highlights the burdens of a family as well as the impact of a culture where girls are still struggling to fully realize their dreams.
Pari’s story is told through the perspective of her six-year-old sister Mehr, who is unaware of her family traditions that lay in the path of women from her family.The animated short was made in collaboration with Chime For Change to support Equality Now and ‘Girls Not Brides’ in an effort to bring an end to child marriage. After the screening, Susan Chokachi, Gucci President and CEO, introduced the panel and shared that Sharmeen Obaid is “someone who brings stories to life with incredible courage, fierce determination, and limitless compassion for the subjects and the subject matters that she covers. So we’re so proud to be part of this project.”During the event, Sharmeen spoke about the concept of the short and explained, “It all starts with a dream. I come from Pakistan. If you had told a girl growing up in Pakistan, where there was no film industry to speak of, that she would one day be the recipient of two Academy Awards, I would have said, that is not possible. But someone allowed me to dream, and gave me the ability to dream, and gave me the wings to dream. And that is the conversation that I want to happen in homes. This is as much about child brides as it is about robbing young girls of important dreams.”
She further stressed on the fact that animation is a non-threatening medium that allows you to say things that other mediums do not.
– With information from Vogue and Red Carpet Report
