Internationally-celebrated filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy will speak at a screening of her new film The Lost Generation at The Sanctuary for Independent Media on Friday, June 6, 2008 at 7 PM. Admission is by donation ($10 suggested, $5 student/low income).

Local presentation of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is co-sponsored by Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, made possible by volunteer labor and small financial contributions from hundreds of patrons of The Sanctuary For Independent Media.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is the first non-American journalist to be awarded the prestigious Livingston Award and the youngest recipient of the One World Media broadcast journalist of the year award in the United Kingdom.

Over the past seven years she has produced and reported on 13 films for major networks in the United States and Britain including CNN, PBS, Channel 4 (U.K.) and the Discovery channel. Her work has earned her major awards in broadcast journalism including the Overseas Press Club Award, The American women and Radio and Television award, The Cine Golden Eagle Award, The Banff TV Rockie award and the South Asian Journalist Award.

In her latest film–The Lost Generation (2008)–filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy investigates the biggest and most catastrophic refugee crisis in the Middle East since the Palestinian diaspora of 1948.

In the past five years more than four million Iraqis–20 per cent of the entire population–have been driven from their homes as a result of the war and sectarian bloodshed. Two million have become exiles, living desperate lives across the border in Syria and Jordan.

The film travels to Syria and Jordan to investigate the plight of Iraqi refugees. These are the very people on whom the new, democratic Iraq was to be built–the professional middle classes–nearly half of whom now live as desperate refugees, driven out by the violence and civil breakdown.

Sharmeen’s work has taken her to more than ten countries around the world. Her career in documentary filmmaking began when she examined the plight of Afghani refugee children in Pakistan for one of her articles. Their situation was so dire, and their stories so compelling, that Sharmeen decided to return to Pakistan and create a film about them. She petitioned Smith College and New York Times Television production division for the grants that would allow her to accomplish her goals. Intrigued by her story, both organizations gave her the funds as well as production equipment and training.

Born in Karachi, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was the first woman in her Pakistani family to receive a Western education. Obaid graduated from Smith College with a bachelor of arts in economics and government and then went to complete two master’s degrees from Stanford University in International Policy Studies and Communication.

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