Faculty member of the Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies (CLCS) Minor at the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS), Dr. Zebunnisa Hamid, has been selected to be part of Pakistan’s Oscar Selection Committee this year. The Committee includes preeminent members of the film industry. The Oscar committee will be responsible for choosing one film as the official submission from Pakistan for the International Feature Film Award Category, formally known as the Foreign Language Feature Film category, for the 92nd Academy Awards.
Dr. Hamid is an Assistant Professor of Film Studies at LUMS. Her current research focuses on gender and the crisis of masculinity, the transnational city and urban spaces on screen, and the industries of small cinemas. She is working on her book on New Pakistani Cinema, which will bring all these perspectives together.
Dr. Hamid states, “These are exciting times as we are witnessing the emergence and development of a new cinema in Pakistan. While this new cinema will face many challenges, it is very important that films keep getting made and receive support and recognition for their achievements.”
The Oscars will be held in Los Angeles on February 9, 2020.
The Badal Do Expo was held recently in Karachi. Badal Do is an initiative that aims to adopt creative and innovative methods to make peace, social inclusion, diversity and tolerance part of the educational experience in the classrooms and beyond.
They achieve this through experiential learning, interactive teaching methods using a mix of teacher training modules and, creative approaches through the use of collaborative spaces and mediums of theatre, arts and music.