Two-time Oscar-winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy to become first Pakistani filmmaker to direct a Star Wars movie

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy to direct Rey focused Star Wars film

Two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is all set to make history with a Star Wars film. Sharmeen will become the first person from Pakistan to direct a Star Wars film.

A Rey-focused Star Wars film was announced back in 2023 and was expected to hit the theatres on December 18, 2026. However, Disney had changed its 2026 release calendar and replaced the Star Wars yet-to-be-titled film with Ice Age 6.

Meanwhile, the makers are yet to provide an official update on the film.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Rey is anticipated to feature in a number of other projects (though it's unclear which ones) in addition to the recently revealed new trilogy by writer/producer Simon Kinberg. The outlet also suggested that "rumors in the Star Wars underground of filmmakers jostling for characters."

A source close to the production shared at that time, “Rey, the scavenger-turned-Jedi played by Daisy Ridley in the last three episode movies, is key to the franchise’s next turn. That potentially puts Kinberg’s trilogy story development, as early in its conceptual stages as it may be, on a collision course with the Rey standalone movie that is actively in the works with director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.”

The film is speculated to star Daisy Ridley as Rey.

Although the exact plot of the Rey movie is still unknown, it is anticipated to take place fifteen years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker and centre on Rey's training of a new generation of Jedi warriors. Lucasfilm is rumoured to have ambitious plans for the former scavenger turned formidable Force-wielder, even if the film never makes it to the big screen.

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For the unversed, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has received seven Emmy Awards, including two in the International Emmy Award for Current Affairs Documentary category for the films Pakistan's Taliban Generation and Saving Face.

She also bagged two Academy Awards for her documentary Saving Face, becoming the first Pakistani to win an Oscar. She has also been one of only 11 female directors to ever win an Oscar for a non-fiction film. Additionally, she is also the first non-American to win the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.