Smile Pinki, directed by Megan Mylan, has won the Oscar nomination in the category of Best Documentary (Short).

Pinki happens to be the protagonist of the 39-minute documentary. The documentary depicted her real life. She was born with a cleft lip, which required a surgery.

To celebrate the occasion, Mylan has invited Pinki’s family including her father, Rajendra Sonkar, a labourer and mother Shimla Devi to attend the Oscars presentation on February  22 at Los Angeles. Pinki and her parents accompanied by a social worker Pankaj Singh were in Lucknow on Friday to get their passports.

“The passports will be issued to them on a priority basis so that they can attend the Oscar ceremony,” a spokesman of the Regional Passport Office at Lucknow said.

Pinki was ridiculed umpteen times in the past in her village, Purwa Khokia, in Mirzapur district because of her cleft lip.

Smile Train, a global charity organisation, brought Pinki to Varanasi where corrective surgery was performed on her by surgeon Dr Subodh Kumar Singh at G S Memorial Plastic Surgery Hospital.

After Pinki’s story hit headlines, the state government has adopted Pinki’s village, which will now be transformed as a model village, complete with all amenities.

“All basic amenities would be made available in the village. The state government while would bear the expenditure of Pinki’s education,” said Jaswant Singh, Chief Development Officer of Mirzapur.

Working in tandem with Smile Train organisation, Dr Singh said the Varanasi hospital had performed over 13,000 surgeries during last four and a half years, which is phenomenal.