“There is a moment when you have to choose – whether to be silent, or to stand up.”
On the afternoon of 9 October 2012, Malala Yousafzai boarded her school bus in the northwest Pakistani district of Swat. A gunman asked for her by name then shot her in the forehead; but despite expectations she survived.
Targeted by the Taliban for speaking out on the need for female education – she initially rose to prominence after a New York Times documentary about her life, and had been nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize – this assassination attempt provoked an international outpouring of support.
Now a Nobel Prize laureate (the youngest ever) and a leading advocate for children’s rights across the globe, Davis Guggenheim’s (Waiting for “Superman”) documentary offers an intimate portrait of an incredibly courageous young woman, balancing her passionate activism with the everyday demands of being both an ordinary, and extraordinary teenage girl.