Saving Face Middle Eastern Premiere at ADFF12 (Film Review)
On 13 th October 2012, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy and Daniel Jung’s Oscar winning documentary ‘Saving Face’ had its Middle Eastern premiere, as part of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. The documentary film chronicles the work of Dr. Jawad, a plastic surgeon of Pakistani origin from the UK, who travels to Islamabad, Pakistan to help acid attack victims. He helps and performs reconstructive surgeries on many of the disfigured victims, but only two such victims were highlighted in detail in the film. Saving Face is dedicated to Rukhsana and Zakia, two women from the Saraiki belt of Punjab, Pakistan. The film is a roller coaster ride of emotions. It starts off with Zakia a 39 year old woman, who states that she cannot bear to look at her face any more. Her face haunts her and that’s why she has stopped looking in to a mirror. She shows the audience her past photos and how she used to be, before she got disfigured by acid. She tells the audience that she used to love taking photographs of he