{"id":13635,"date":"2016-04-22T10:36:02","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T09:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/?p=13635"},"modified":"2016-04-22T11:03:09","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T10:03:09","slug":"murdered-by-my-fathers-kiran-sonia-sawar-honour-killings-is-an-issue-that-needs-to-be-dealt-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/22\/murdered-by-my-fathers-kiran-sonia-sawar-honour-killings-is-an-issue-that-needs-to-be-dealt-with\/","title":{"rendered":"Murdered by my Father\u2019s Kiran Sonia Sawar: \u2018Honour killings is an issue that needs to be dealt with\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a moment in BBC Three drama Murdered by my Father<\/em> where London teen Salma, played by Kiran Sonia Sawar, flees from her father’s imprisonment and jumps over the nearest balcony in her block of flats. While this happens, the camera pans to an Asian neighbour opposite who sees Salma escaping and in response, speedily closes the curtains. It’s a moment that is small, but extremely significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny close-knit communities will shut themselves out from directly addressing problems, but instead gossip about them, and I think that\u2019s the problem\u201d, says Sawar. \u201cThey\u2019re more than happy to have a conversation with someone else about it, but they\u2019re never going to hit it head-on. And I think that\u2019s what that scene really effectively represents, it\u2019s that problem of ignorance.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Murdered by my Father<\/em> focuses on honour killings and the plight of Salma, who becomes victim to her father\u2019s rage after falling in love with cheeky charmer Imi (Mawaan Rizwan). As the title suggests, it ends with disastrous consequences.<\/p>\n

Rather than feeling angry or upset about the family dynamic however, Sawar empathised with Salma\u2019s father Shahzad (Adeel Akhtar): \u201cI think it\u2019s a gorgeous relationship, I think Salma really, really loves her dad and brother, and obviously Salma doesn\u2019t see her dad\u2019s demise, she doesn\u2019t see that side of it until it\u2019s too late, but her relationship with her dad is completely one of love.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Having grown up in a Pakistani family herself, Sawar\u2019s desire for discussions surrounding honour-based violence to be more prominent is palpable. While she has received incredible support from her liberal Asian parents \u2013 they have always encouraged her to pursue a career as an actress – Sawar feels a deep connection with Salma \u201cin terms of love, intelligence, a passion for wanting to live your own life and make your own choices and deal with those consequences\u201d. She adds: \u201cThat\u2019s how you learn, that\u2019s how you grow.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

But in trying to understand the mind-set of girls and women like Salma, portrayals of honour-based violence can often be inaccurate, dismissing the individual\u2019s internal struggle to make life-defining decisions. \u201cThe media can describe it from a westernised point of view,\u201d<\/span> <\/em>she says. Sawar understands the misconceptions attached to this issue and when discussing victim-blaming, her objection towards such attitudes is clear.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t make any sense in my mind. How can anyone dare to blame the victim in any situation where somebody is being attacked? Salma goes back [to her family] out of love, out of duty, out of care, out of passion, out of honesty, out of who she is as a person. For someone to want to walk away from their whole lives, from everything that they\u2019ve built, and all their relationships and their parents, it\u2019s a massive, massive, massive deal,\u201d<\/span><\/em> she says.<\/p>\n

Sawar\u2019s appearance in Murdered by my Father<\/em> also comes at a crucial time for BBC Three. The broadcaster is redefining itself as a front runner in producing compelling documentaries and drama, while offering a platform for young emerging talent. And Sawar is no stranger to working with the BBC, having appeared in an episode of BBC One\u2019s Holby City. More recently, she has also starred in the US TV series Legends, which aired on American TV channel TNT.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first TV job was only last year in June, which was \u2018Legends\u2019, and all three of my TV jobs have been based completely on the fact that I\u2019m Asian. But I think that I\u2019m not somebody who shies away from my culture and who I am, and should the story need to be told, I\u2019m more than happy to comply and tell the story from an Asian perspective. That\u2019s not an issue, but it would be lovely if there were more opportunities to play characters that are a bit different, a bit more daring, definitely.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

She is currently rehearsing for her next role in the world premiere of Brideshead Revisited<\/em>. Sawar will play youngest daughter of the aristocratic Brideshead family in the adaption of Evelyn Waugh\u2019s novel, set in 1943.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find that theatre is much more open to colour-blind casting and to casting based on what somebody can bring to a role rather than their appearance,\u201d<\/span> says Sawar.<\/p>\n

For Sawar, Murdered by my Father<\/em> is not just about using ground-breaking TV to educate girls. She wants to use this medium to change the mind-set of her male audience too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had lots of lovely messages from young Asian men. They\u2019re going to grow up to be the next dads and uncles and grandads, and they\u2019re just as important in this storyline,\u201d explains Sawar. \u201cIf this is being taught to men from a younger age, about their treatment of women and their respect for women and how women are entitled to their own choice of freedom, then I feel like that\u2019s my job being done.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a human issue, it needs to be dealt with,\u201d continues Sawar. \u201cI don\u2019t want honour killings to be another thing that people see and think: \u2018oh, that\u2019s not our problem, that\u2019s this problem or that\u2019s somebody else\u2019s problem\u2019, because it doesn\u2019t just happen in Asian communities.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a moment in BBC Three drama Murdered by my Father where London teen Salma, played by Kiran Sonia Sawar, flees from her father’s imprisonment and jumps over the nearest balcony in her block of flats. While this happens, the camera pans to an Asian neighbour opposite who sees Salma escaping and in response, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,108,46,53,38,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-desi_masala","category-dx-interviews","category-features","category-latest","category-national-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}