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Though the iron odds are stacked high against her, 18-year-old Sonita – an Afghan refugee in Iran – fights to make her dream of breaking the code of silence around child marriage through the tool of rap music a reality. Watch her roar.
Director: Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami
Share this film. Give others the chance to be moved by Sonita and her story.
Support Girls Not Brides – an umbrella organization of groups from around 70 countries, united in their goal to end child marriage and help girls reach their full potential.
Help to incite change through organizations like CARE, a global organization with many active campaigns fighting to end child marriage.
Support Chicken and Egg, whose work makes films like SONITA possible. They support women nonfiction filmmakers whose artful and innovative storytelling catalyzes social change.
Visit the website of Free Women Writers, a collective of female writers who “aim to promote human rights, social justice, and egalitarianism using our pens,” particularly in Afghanistan.
“Making SONITA was a journey into the depths of society to understand poverty, immigration, war, identity, sexism, tradition and human values versus filmmaking conventions”
Read the full interview.
This map tells us the age at which girls can legally be married when parental consent exceptions that lower the minimum age are considered.
Afghanistan’s weak legal system has led to a routine reliance on informal justice mechanisms that commodify young women and leave them vulnerable to abuse.
Continue reading on the Guardian.
A blog post reflecting upon the relationship between mothers and daughters in societies were girls are sold.
Sporting a long leather coat and western jeans under a headscarf, Soosan Feroz looks like many modern women in Kabul. But she is a surprising new phenomenon in this conservative Islamic country — the nation’s first female rapper.
Find out more.
“It’s the question every documentary filmmaker will at some point ask themselves: “How close should I get to my subject?” Making a documentary is like running a marathon with no definite end in sight. It takes time and 100% commitment to your subject. For anyone who has been through the process, you understand the feeling of being immersed into the world of your subject. ”
Read the full article on Filmmaker Magazine.
"SONITA puts a defiant face and expressive voice to a resistance that needs to be as loud as possible."
Roger Ebert.com
"THRILLING"
The Guardian
"...intriguing and troubling – on many levels"
Screen Daily
