New Malala Documentary a Model for Interfaith Learning

The story of Malala Yousafzai is well beloved by Western media, with news outlets having followed her life closely for the past three years. And rightly so. The Pakistani teen is an activist for girls’ education and a well-respected world leader in promoting the voices of women and girls around the globe.

It was her belief that all girls have a right to an education that made her a target of the Taliban, resulting in Malala losing hearing in her left ear and being forced out of her beloved home in the Swat Valley, Pakistan. Malala celebrated her sixteenth birthday by addressing the United Nations in 2013, the same year she released her memoir, I Am Malala. And most recently, she was named the Nobel Peace Prize recipient of 2014. Her non-profit, The Malala Fund, invests and advocates for girls’ secondary education, in order to amplify the voices of girls around the world who have been ignored.

It would be hard to create a stronger superhero for girls and boys in anyone’s imagination.

So it makes sense that producers Walter Parkes and Laurie Macdonald had a vision for a film documenting Malala’s story. They hired Academy Award-winning documentarian Davis Guggenheim, and he set out on a personal expository of the life and legacy of Malala Yousafzai.

The result of two years spent accompanying the Yousafzai family — on their relocation to Birmingham, England, along their rollercoaster of media appearances, and through the continued fight for voices of girls everywhere — is the new film, He Named Me Malala, out in theaters as of Oct. 2.

With a combination of one-on-one interviews, clips of news coverage, video of the family’s daily life, and beautiful animation to tell the parts of the story unable to be documented on camera, He Named Me Malala is bound to move the hearts of viewers to care just as deeply for education rights as Malala and her family does. As I watched the film at the Washington, D.C., premiere, I was laughing at some of the family dynamics that resembled those of my own family, while simultaneously sitting in awe at the courage and support for one another that the Yousafzais display. I, along with the hundreds of other attendees that night, left the viewing with a better understanding of what “one girl with one pen” can do to change the status quo.

But this film can do — and must do — more than humanize Malala and garner support for the girls’ education movement. I believe that with thoughtful conversation, reflection, and dialogue, the documentary of Malala, as a girl guided by her Muslim faith to make a change in the world, can also be a film that helps to counter the Western media’s Islamophobia.

As pointed out in previous articles, though the teachings of Islam are the foundation on which Malala’s path of justice, equality, and forgiveness is forged, this point is often overlooked. The absence of a discussion of Islam may not always be intentional, but when we remove Malala’s faith from her story, we lose an opportunity for interfaith dialogue that fights against Western stereotypes.

As Meighan Stone, president of The Malala Fund, stated at a panel discussion during the Washington, D.C., premiere, “Anybody from any faith can learn from” the example Malala sets of putting her faith into action.

Even the production itself modeled interfaith collaboration (the film had partnerships with the United Arab Emirates, a Muslim nation, and the film company Image Nation Abu Dhabi). Directorial decisions, such as showing the family attending prayer services at a local mosque and explaining Malala’s mother’s choice to always cover her head, allow those of us with little exposure to Muslim faith practices to begin to understand the religion a bit better.

All too often, we see images only of Muslim radicalism on television, and reports about the Taliban’s activity and oppression oftentimes do not distinguish the differences between Islam and fundamentalist Islam. He Named Me Malala shows us otherwise. In the United States, activists are often secular figures — yet Malala speaks out about her story and her passions because she believes her faith calls her to do so.

“Islam teaches us humanity, equality, and forgiveness,” explains Malala.

In her forgiveness of the Taliban who shot her, in her passion for a peaceful path for equality, and in her desire to remain humble, Malala is an excellent witness to her faith from whom people of all faiths can learn.

It is my hope that this new documentary can open up conversations around the country on how to live as faithful people in the world. He Named Me Malala can get the conversation started, by documenting one Muslim family’s extraordinary tale of faith. The Yousafzais are more of a rule than an exception, and though Malala’s activism is one for the storybooks, it is in no way the only example of faithful Muslim followers putting their faith in action for social justice.

WATCH the trailer for 'He Named Me Malala'