Coming to the National Geographic Channel tonight, Monday, February 29: HE NAMED ME MALALA
Davis Guggenheim’s portrait of the girls’ education activist debuted at Telluride last year. The film went on to screen at DOC NYC, Toronto, Tokyo, Mumbai, Adelaide, London, Hamptons, and Athena, among other events. It was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar of 2015.
The story of Malala Yousafzai made worldwide headlines after the Taliban shot the outspoken Pakistani teenager – and several of her friends – for daring to defy a ban on education for girls in her native Swat Valley. She recovered from her injuries to continue her mission, despite a threat of further violence if she returned to Pakistan, writing a best-selling book, making numerous media appearances, and speaking all over the world, addressing heads of states and other influential global figures – and capturing the attention of the Nobel Prize nominating committee in the process. While Guggenheim covers this familiar terrain, his focus is more personal, as signaled by the film’s title, which references Malala’s father, an educator who also found himself on the Taliban’s target list for speaking out against their repressive policies, and who named his daughter after an Afghan folk hero who sacrificed herself to rally her people. Combined with animated sequences that flesh out significant episodes in her past, interviews with and about her father offer an intriguing context for the young woman’s activism.
what (not) to doc 