On March 8, HBO will premiere Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Saving Face, recently nominated for a best documentary short Academy Award.
The film follows two acid attack survivors in Pakistan, Zakia and Rukhsana, who are attempting to bring their assailants to justice. Also featured is London-based, Pakistani-born plastic surgeon Dr. Mohammad Jawad, who volunteers to help the survivors of such attacks.
Saving Face will air on March 8 at 8:30 on HBO, and will screen again on both HBO and HBO2. The premiere on the cable network also coincides with International Women’s Month, in order to highlight the issue of acid violence in Southeast Asia, which primarily affects women.
The documentary also follows the push to enact new legislation that imposes stricter sentencing of perpetrators of acid attacks.
Daniel Junge’s credits include Chiefs, which was named best documentary at the 2002 Tribeca Film Festival, and the HBO docs They Killed Sister Dorothy and The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner. Co-director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was the first Pakistani woman to win an Emmy, for Pakistan’s Taliban Generation.
Saving Face was produced by Davis Coombe, Daniel Junge, Alison Greenberg, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Sabiha Sumar and for HBO, Lisa Heller served as senior producer and Sheila Nevins, executive producer.