Sitara-let girls dream Are we letting girls dream?

Sitara- let girls dream.

The animation Sitara by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy helps convey such a powerful message without uttering a single word; it depicts the story of a 14-year-old girl named Pari who dreams of becoming a pilot, but the Pakistani society and cultures intervene. The short film highlights many themes and shows how patriarchy is embedded in Pakistani society. The film shows the male figure- Pari’s father sitting on a couch while the entire family sits on the floor to eat food. It shows how helpless women are when deciding the future of their children; the mother can be seen disagreeing with the marriage proposal but has to bow down to pressure. Secondly, the most crucial theme of this movie is access to education, how a young girl who dreams of being a pilot started making paper planes but was scared of her father finding out about them and also the fact that she would only read and study in her room. The pressure on women to hide their dreams and pursue education with the constant threat of their family not approving their dreams and the figureheads of the family deciding their future. The story is just one story of a girl who was not given a chance to pursue her dreams, but over the years, we have seen that in the context of Pakistan, female education has always been a hurdle. After researching female education in Pakistan, we saw that there are many hurdles to education, such as security, safety, lack of sanitation and resources, access disrupted due to distance, lack of enrollment due to family pressure and most important early marriages, which was directly shown in this movie. Women's education in Pakistan is a fundamental right of every female citizen, according to article thirty-seven of the Constitution of Pakistan, but we do not see it happening. There has been direct conflict towards women in Pakistan in terms of education but has the government done anything? We have just seen articles and rights, but these are just words. Have we seen any actions? Has there been any policy specifically made for women? Early marriages are a hurdle in education; why have they not been banned? This 15-minute animation shows us the importance of dreams and how women in Pakistan are deprived of pursuing their dreams.

-p.s poster is attached with text too