'He Named Me Malala' premieres at Mumbai Film Festival

Mumbai: American documentary on the life of Pakistani female activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, "He Named Me Malala", premiered at the 17th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, here today.

Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the one-hour-30-minute film is a compilation of real footage and interviews which chronicles the journey of the 18-year-old Malala who was targeted by Taliban gunmen, shot in the head and left wounded on October 9, 2012.

The film documents true events of incidents leading up to the Talibans' attack on Malala for speaking out in support of educating girls in her region of Swat Valley in Pakistan.

"He Named Me Malala" also chronicles the aftermath of the incident and her speech to the United Nations.

Aged 17, Mala became the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate when she was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi in 2014.

The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 4 this year and received a theatrical release in the United States on October 2.

The eight-day-long festival, organised by Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI) with Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) and Star India, will screen nearly 225 films in feature/ documentary/short films categories.

The festival concludes on November 5. "Dhanak", directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, had its premiere this morning in the presence of festival director Anupama Chopra.