Last year, 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai became the youngest person to ever receive a Nobel Peace Prize for her courageous struggle and activism for the right for all children in her country, Pakistan, to receive an education.
Now, Yousafzai is the subject of a documentary, He Named Me Malala, being released by Fox Searchlight Films. Today, the film studio released a trailer for that documentary by Davis Guggenheim, who also directed the Oscar winning film An Inconvenient Truth and the Waiting for Superman documentary.
The trailer begins with the tragic shooting of Yousafzai by the Taliban, who felt threatened by the message she sent on her blog in support of education, particularly the education of girls in her country. However, after recovering from her wounds, Yousafzai became a worldwide figure, and continued advocating for the rights of children.
The trailer also shows Yousafzai as a normal teenage girl as she spends time with her family and teases her brother. "I'm still a teenager," she says in the clip.
We also learn that Malala's father named his daughter after Malalai of Maiwand, a national folk hero of Afghanistan.
"My father only gave me the name Malala; he didn't make me Malala," says Yousafzai at the end of the trailer.
In October, 2014, Yousafzai received a Nobel Peace Prize for her continued activism. She also published a memoir I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban co-written by Christina Lamb. However, that many Pakistani private schools banned that book.
Pakistan's literacy rate for school-aged girls is only 61.5 percent, according to statistics provided by Unicef. The primary school enrollment rate is only around 83 percent for girls, with 100 percent of boys attending school. Secondary school participation rates are even lower with around 35 percent for boys and around 28 percent for girls. Yousafzi has spent much of her life advocating for better educational opportunities for both boys and girls in her country.
He Named Me Malala opens in select theaters on October 2.
Photo Credit: Fox Searchlight
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