Malala Yousafzai shares a truly inspirational bond with father
FOR director Davis Guggenheim, He Named Me Malala is a universal story about a father and his daughter — a remarkable young woman who had the courage to speak out even when her life was threatened.
He Named Me Malala is an intimate, compelling portrait of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban in her native Pakistan when returning home on a school bus in October 2012.“For me, the most compelling part is this father-daughter story. I immediately walked in and said, ‘What it needs to be is not a local story. It needs to be a universal story.’
“I think for her and [her father] Ziauddin, the story is just beginning. Their work is not just about her, but about 66 million girls who don’t have school, who suffer in so many of the same ways they’ve suffered.
“They’re going to spend the rest of their lives doing that, and for me, that’s essential,” he says.
Guggenheim was brought on to direct the project by producers Laurie MacDonald and Walter Parkes and after an initial meeting, was struck by the bond shared by Malala and her father.
Malala and her father, Ziauddin, a teacher, had spoken out against a Taliban order forbidding girls attending school in the Swat Valley. Miraculously, she survived the Taliban attack and is now a leading campaigner for girls’ education globally as co-founder of the Malala Fund.
Guggenheim hopes that his film will galvanise support for Malala Yousafzai’s campaign for education for girls all over the world. “Malala is the girl who was shot on her school bus, and that could have been the end of her story but in many ways it was the beginning,” he says. “In the movie it’s so beautiful when she says, ‘I’ve been given a new life, and this life is a sacred life’.”
DEMANDING EDUCATION
Guggenheim made the Oscar- winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth (2006) about former US vice president Al Gore’s campaign to put climate change at the top of the political agenda. He hopes that He Named Me Malala can have the same impact.
“I’ve had this great privilege of making movies that aren’t just movies,” he says. “Millions of people saw An Inconvenient Truth in America, millions of people saw it in the rest of the world, and a generation of people became engaged in climate change.
“Now, it wasn’t the only thing, obviously. It was just a movie, and that movie was just one small piece, but to me that’s the most exciting thing — what a movie can do in the world. It can mean engaging a generation of people, and I think this movie has the same opportunity. What if you made a movie that a girl in Los Angeles and her father would go to, or a girl in Japan and her father would go to, or a girl in London with her parents? It is universal, the idea of an inspiring father and a girl who has the courage to speak out. This story can reach everybody, and it can make real global change.
“An Inconvenient Truth is required viewing in several countries. Several countries have said, ‘You cannot graduate unless you’ve seen it.’ That’s fantastic, and I think this movie is certainly relevant to someone who is interested in the politics of the global south, but I think it will be very relevant to a girl in Europe who has a great school, but maybe does not feel confident to speak out.”
For Guggenheim’s own family, this is also relevant. “I have two daughters, 14 and nine and they have a good, safe, school, but they struggle with many things that many girls around the world struggle with.
“Do they feel equal? Do they feel confident to speak out? To me, making this film was very meaningful, because I was also making it for them. I think that girls in England, and other girls around the world who do have safe schools, will find this very relevant to them.
“Also, I think fathers will wonder whether they can do more to make their daughters feel as strong and as equal and as brave as Malala.”
FAMILY TRUST
Filmed over two years, Guggenheim and his team started out by winning the trust of Ziauddin, Malala and their family. It took time, he admits.
“Over time, they got to know me and I got to know them. I believe I gained their trust, but it took time. They’re such an extraordinary family but in so many ways just like mine,” he says.
For the family, telling their story was another way of letting the world know what is happening in their country, and others, where young girls are being denied education.
“They told their story in Pakistan because they had an urgent need. Their town was under siege and the Taliban was intimidating people for going to school, and they eventually shut down their school and were blowing up schools.
“They felt compelled to tell their story to the world so that people would see what was happening, so telling their story was their way of taking action, whereas here, in America or in England, maybe it’s an act of vanity or an act of persuasion.
“For them it was an act of necessity, so when I came, I think telling their story was a continuation of that. If suddenly their story could be turned into a movie that the world could see, it was a continuation of their mission,” he says.
Spending time with Malala and her family was a privilege, he says. “I’ve made movies about the president of the US, the vice-president of the US, rock -stars, weirdly about a lot of people who are famous and who we think we know, and sometimes the more you get to know people, the more they disappoint you, as they become human.
“Every time I’m with Malala and Ziadduin they impress me more. They are such intelligent people — they are curious, they are worldly, they are spiritually very deep and they are hilariously funny. After I see them, I come home to my own family and I feel inspired. My skin is buzzing from the experience of being with them because they are so extraordinary.”
