Oscar-Winning Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Shares Her Likes, Loves, And Life Lessons

The double Oscar-winning filmmaker and Creative Director’s work shines a light on women’s rights, inequality and social justice. Through fearless storytelling and powerful documentaries, the Pakistani native uses her voice to challenge norms and inspire change across the world

Name: Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

Job title: Filmmaker/Creative Director

Nationality: Canadian-Pakistani

Is it more important to be liked or respected, and why?

Respected. Being liked is often immediate and conditional, it shifts with opinion, comfort, and circumstance. Respect is built over time. It comes from consistency, from integrity, and from a willingness to stand for something even when it is difficult or unpopular.

What book changed your life and why?

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart made me realise how important it is to tell your own stories, especially in places where narratives are often shaped externally. Storytelling is not just about representation; it is about agency, about who gets to define truth, memory, and identity and that realisation has guided my work ever since.

What did your last Spotify Wrapped look like?

It was a mix that felt like moving between worlds: Makhu by Manizeh, Petite Fleur by Jill Barber, Fast Car by Tracy Chapman, and The Cranberries’ Dreams.

What does success mean to you?

Making the invisible visible

Who are your heroes?

The women who keep going when no one is watching, who carry stories that are heavy, and still choose to stand, to speak, to hope. They don’t have platforms. They don’t have protection. What they have is something far more powerful: a refusal to disappear.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Obedience. It’s often mistaken for goodness. Too often it asks people to stay silent, to accept, to not question.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I think I would try to be less restless.

What’s your greatest extravagance?

Time! Not just having it, but allowing myself to take it without feeling like I should be somewhere else, doing something else.

What are you proudest of?

Using the platform that came with an Academy Award to bring attention to honour killings in Pakistan and contribute to the momentum for legal reform.

What’s your most treasured possession?

My grandmother’s handwritten recipes. They bring back my childhood.

What trait do you admire most in others?

The ability to keep going, even when no one is watching.

What’s your guiltiest pleasure?

Watching a romantic film on a plane – there are inevitably a few tears.

What is your motto?

If a door hasn’t opened for you it’s because you haven’t kicked it hard enough

What would you ban if you had the chance?

Indifference.

If you could be anyone else, who would it be and why?

A court historian in the Mughal court in India, because the real power was never just in ruling, but in deciding how the story would be told.

What inspires you most about your job?

Being trusted with stories that are often difficult to tell.

If you could only wear one brand for the rest of your life, what would it be?

[Pakistani designer] Sania Maskatiya.

What would you tell your younger self?

Nothing is permanent.

What do you most value in your friends?

The ability to dance all night and sit in silence in the mountains.

Image Supplied

From the Harper’s Bazaar Arabia June 2026 issue