My topics are timely. When an event is happening is when I want to be there... I think it is our duty to challenge the status quo.

When the film and music industries declined in the wake of increasingly conservative Muslim laws and social customs in Pakistan, many of these musicians found themselves out of work. They were brought together at Sachal Studios by Izzat Majeed, who built the studio in order to preserve these musical traditions.

It takes one second to ruin a woman's life.

In December 2011, I will be opening up my production house, Sharmeen Obaid Films, and aspire to change the way Pakistanis approach nonfiction storytelling. There are thousands of stories to be found here.

I'd like to do a film in Canada, but it's too difficult. National Film Board funding takes too long, and there's too much paperwork; by the time the film is approved the topic is dead and gone.

I want people to leave the theater with a greater understanding of the rich cultural heritage of Pakistan. "Song of Lahore" moves beyond headlines and stereotypes and shows that a vast majority of Pakistanis are not perpetrators of religious violence - they are victims of it. The beautiful cultural heritage of the region belies its image in the West as monolithically religious, intolerant, and violent.

I feel that for the first time in a long time, educated Pakistanis are returning to their country to start up educational projects, to start up businesses, so instead of the brain-drain that happened in the 1950s and 1960s, the country is growing and improving economically.