Reader: Saving Face Oscar win hits close to home

Saving Face may be set in Pakistan, but the crew behind the film is from Colorado -- and they brought an Oscar back to this state after winning the best short documentary award. The team included co-directors Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, producer Allison Greenberg, editor/producer Davis Coombe and Dr...

By Patricia Calhoun

March 9, 2012

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Saving Face may be set in Pakistan, but the crew behind the film is from Colorado -- and they brought an Oscar back to this state after winning the best short documentary award.

The team included co-directors Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, producer Allison Greenberg, editor/producer Davis Coombe and Dr. Mohammad Jawad, the doctor the crew followed around Pakistan as he helped women whose faces had been disfigured in acid attacks. "To say it is surreal is an understatement," Greenberg wrote in her Academy Awards recap here.

And the ripples of that win continue. The filmmakers are now on the festival circuit, showing Saving Face (which was on HBO last night); meanwhile, here at home, the Oscar bolsters Colorado's reputation as a place where movies can actually be made.

And then there are the smaller touches, as Coworker reveals here:

Coombe's mom works where I do. The picture of her holding the award and her son is hanging on the frig of our breakroom.

Read Greenberg's Academy Award dispatch to Show and Tell here; find out more about Saving Face here.

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Patricia Calhoun is editor-in-chief of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. She’s also received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists. Patricia is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS 12's public affairs roundtable, which has won two Emmys.

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