Free screening of Malala Yousafzai documentary in Maharashtra, Karnataka tomorrow

A documentary film on Pakistani activist and youngest Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai will be screened free of cost at 10 places, including nine districts of Maharashtra and one in Karnataka, on Saturday.

The 87-minute documentary “He Named Me Malala”, directed by Davis Guggenheim, was released worldwide, including India, on November 6.

“The documentary is a must watch for everyone, who wants to bring a change in the current socio-economic status of the girl child. This is why we have partnered with few other agencies to reach out to every concerned person,” Dr Girish Kulkarni, the founder of Snehalay NGO which has taken initiative to screen the movie, told PTI.

Snehalay, working for HIV affected children, has collaborated with Malala Fund, Global Giving (international NGO) and Fox Star to screen the movie, he said.

Since the documentary is in English, it would be shown to activists or those who can understand it. Later, when its dubbed Hindi version would come in January or February next year, it would be screened in all theatres across the state, he said.

The documentary would be screened on Saturday at 10 multiplexes simultaneously in Ahmednagar, Nanded, Amravati, Nagpur, Nashik, Sangli, Jalgaon, Latur and Mumbai (all in Maharashtra) and Belgaum (Karnataka).

Highlighting the problems faced by documentaries to be screened in cinema halls, Kulkarni said, “Unfortunately, such films have a lot of hurdles to get screened in cinema halls or multiplexes. The recently released film ‘Prem Ratan Dhan Payo’ played a spoilsport in our efforts. However, we have succeeded in getting it to be screened (tomorrow) in 10 multiplexes on one day.”

Malala was critically injured when she was shot in the forehead by a Talibani gunman on October 9, 2012, when she was 15 years old. She was later taken to a hospital in England for intensive rehabilitation after her condition improved.

The 18-year-old activist is known for human rights advocacy for education and for women in her native Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of northwest Pakistan, where the local Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. Yousafzai’s advocacy has since grown into an international movement.

The documentary throws light on her relationship with her father Ziauddin Yousafzai, and briefly traces the emergence of Taliban leader Mulla Fazlullah who claimed the responsibility of the attack on Malala.

Inputs by PTI