June is an important month for Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. It marks 20 years since she started working on her first documentary film in 2002. It will also be the month in which her first live action work of fiction will be unveiled to the world.
The director picks her words carefully when talking about Ms. Marvel. She is contract bound to not give away too much about the latest offering from Marvel Studios. Her conversation is peppered with pauses and every sentence is carefully measured before being spoken.
Sharmeen reveals that she’s been deliberating a shift into narrative filmmaking for some time now. “I didn’t think that I had found a story that I wanted to be a part of until Ms. Marvel came around,” she says. “Here was an opportunity to be part of Kamala Khan’s story. The first brown, Muslim superhero, and a girl.”
The Ms. Marvel series is set to premiere on Disney Plus on 8th June and will tell the story of Kamala Khan over six episodes. A first-generation Pakistani immigrant, Kamala is a teenage character who we’ll see trying to save the world while she contends with the aches and pains of being in high school. Pakistani-Canadian Iman Vellani is breathing life into the role, and also happens to be a first generation immigrant.
In Marvel’s universe the Ms. Marvel moniker originally belonged to Carol Danvers, who is played onscreen by Brie Larson. The character took on the moniker of Captain Marvel in 2012, and the name was passed onto Kamala Khan. Her Pakistani-American identity is a reflection of writer Sana Amanat’s, who is the Director of Content and Character Development at Marvel and cocreated the character with Stephen Wacker.
When Sharmeen discovered that Marvel Studios was looking for directors for this project she reached out to throw her hat in the ring, as she puts it. In a meeting with executive producers Kevin Feigi, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso and supervising producer Jenna Berger, Sharmeen pitched her vision for the series and how she wanted to tell the story. “The next thing I knew, I was yelling ‘Action!’,” she says.
For Sharmeen, it was important to remain true to the story of Kamala Khan. She wanted to present it to the world in a way that ensured audiences fell in love with “the food, the music, the textures, the jokes, and the music that is germane to the South Asian immigrant community that lives in America,” she says.
It was also important to Sharmeen that Pakistanis living back home were able to see a reflection of themselves on the screen. “From the fabrics that we’ve used, the sets that we’ve created, the music that we’ve used to the relationships in a close-knit family, between a brother and a sister, parents and a teenager, they are relatable to audiences here,” she explains, “The series shows conversations that we’ve had in our own homes. The way that food is laid out, the festivals that are celebrated. It’s ours.”
Having lived in New York and Toronto herself, Sharmeen was able to draw from her own experiences for this project. “Immigrant communities have a wonderful way of bringing together Indians, and Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis all under roof. You walk into a store, and you can buy a sari and a shalwar kameez and you can put a bindiya on or you can buy bangles, all together in one place. You walk into a restaurant where you’ll see a Sikh, a Muslim, and a Hindu sitting and breaking bread together and that is a truly South Asian experience and I think that has come alive in the Ms. Marvel series.”
Sharmeen admits that going from documentary filmmaking to a fiction series of this magnitude was a “big switch”. “From documentary filmmaking to working for Marvel Studios and working with the kind of crews that I worked with, the kind of equipment, the kind of visual effects, the kind of stunts I worked with, it is a leap, a giant leap,” she says.
She remembers one day in the second week of filming when she looked around the set and was struck by the magnitude of the production. She was directing hundreds of extras, choreographing how they move and how each second of the scene would play out. “I think that nothing if life prepares you for that,” Sharmeen laughs
Sharmeen’s task was made much easier by the studio, which facilitated her every step of the way. She was given ample time for preproduction and Marvel was receptive to her preference for shooting on location. She scouted her own locations, choosing the places where she got to tell the story. She was given the freedom to interview and assemble her own crew and put together a team from all over the globe.
“Almost everyone I worked with brought with them an experience that lent itself to helping me tell the story I wanted to tell,” Sharmeen says, “I learnt from everyone I worked with. Each of them informed me what they could bring to the table so I could give life to my vision.”
Ms. Marvel’s cast is also drawn from across the world. Nimra Bucha and Fawad Khan have been confirmed as being part of the series.
For Sharmeen, this switch was just the natural next step of her professional evolution. “I’ve worked on more than 20 films in more than 15 countries,” she explains, “There is not a single topic, from war to minority issues that I have not worked on. As a filmmaker you should continuously challenge yourself and tell stories that you feel challenged to tell also.”
When asked if there were days when she felt anxious or regretted taking on such a project, Sharmeen simply replies, “I thrive under difficult circumstances.”
This is on-brand for Sharmeen. The director is constantly on the go and perhaps has been since she started writing investigative pieces for major news outlets at the age of 15. She admits to having a hard time with taking breaks and reveals that, for her, a break is just time to plan more endeavors. Her days seem packed with work and commitments — her next interviewer has arrived before this one is even finished.
The trajectory of her career reflects this constant movement. After over a decade of documentary filmmaking, Sharmeen dabbled in animation, releasing three animated films between 2016 and 2018. During this time, she also released a virtual reality film series. A live action fiction film was then not really a question of ‘if’ but more of ‘when’.
On 3rd May, Sharmeen took to her Instagram with a special announcement: Ms. Marvel would screen in cinemas across Pakistan starting 16th June. With Disney Plus unavailable in Pakistan, it was Sharmeen’s way of ensuring that her offering would be accessible to local audiences.
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“It’s so important to watch a reflection of yourself on the big screen,” Sharmeen says, “It gives you a sense of worth, knowing that your stories are being told. Our cinemas will be filled with people coming together to watch something that is truly historic, it will be a moment of celebration. To be part of something like that, that’s the stuff dreams are made of.”
