‘A Girl in the River’

When 19-year-old Saba Qaiser fell in love and ran off to marry her boyfriend, her family was not happy. That might have been the end of it if Saba was from Paris or Toronto. But she’s Pakistani, and there’s a tradition of honor killings in that country. Saba’s father and uncle beat her, shot her and dumped her body in a river. Miraculously, she survived. This is not an isolated case. Honor killings are still a common occurrence in many parts of the world, and now a short documentary about Saba has been nominated for an Academy Award.