Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy to direct new Star Wars movie

Ms Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has been tapped to helm a new Star Wars film with Damon Lindelof attached as co-writer.

According to entertainment website Deadline, the Lucasfilm project is currently under scripting stage. (Also read: Ms Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy interview)

The movie is being touted as a first major big screen release for Lucasfilm after 2019’s Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. The studio has been focusing on its TV projects — The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor– over recent years since then.

Obaid-Chinoy, best known for her Oscar-winning documentary shorts Saving Face, A Girl in the River and The Price of Forgiveness, recently directed several episodes of Disney’s hit series Ms Marvel.

Speaking to Hindustan Times about working on Ms Marvel and showcasing a story about The Partition, she said, “When we were standing on the platform there were close to a thousand extras on set in the scene where we’d gone back into 1947. When Kamala was walking on the platform, listening to these snatches of conversations, there was a moment when all of us on set couldn’t believe that we were able to recreate Partition and tell this story to this generation. For that time we were filming her walking through that platform, we really were transported into 1947. Each one of us felt the pain of what those families were going through and it felt like we were bearing witness to history.”