Films by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy are well known for their message portrayal for women rights and empowerment. This cause saw her bag a couple of Oscars and three Emmy’s. 24th September, New York, marked the date for the daring film-maker/producer’s,yet another venture revealing an animated short-flick throughout theatres in USA.

For starters (not one of the talkies) the short movie Sitara– Let Girls Dream, is given the silent treatment for visual and soundtrack impact, which is selectively composed by Laura Karpman of ‘Taken and Carrie’ fame (also an Emmy Award winner).

The animated movie addresses the struggle of a young girl, Pari,aged fourteen and based in Lahore,who dreams of becoming a pilot- as was seen in the trailer released some days ago -by profession but her dreams are reduced to dust by getting married as a child and not pursuing what she dreamt about. The story is from the perspective of her younger and immature sister -Mehr, who is not aware of the traditions rooted deep within the minds of many- giving the production a second-person-movie-approach (which had been a favorite amongst art and theatrical movie makers or yore).Addressing the issue of child marriage Sharmeen had worked on this venture along with names like Gloria Steinem, the iconic women’s rights activist, and Darla Anderson, the Academy Award Winning producer of Coco and Toy Story 3, who is the Executive producer for Sitara – Let Girls Dream.

Other names of fame include the Waadi Animations Tea, headed by Art Director Salman Nasir, Animation Director Kamran Khan, CG Lighting Supervisor Adnan Saeed, Director of Photography Faizan Ali, Editor Husain Qaizer, Sound Effects Editor Sameer Khan, co-producer Eleyna Sara Haroun and Associate Producer Syed Ayub with Salman Iqbal, Jerjees Seja and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy as the producers. The trailer of Sitara is available for viewing on this link https://youtu.be/EztDSGZb2xY