After the film, director Davis Guggenheim along with Dr. Ali Asani and Dr. Jocelyne Cesari of Harvard University participated in a talk-back hosted by Globe Docs and the Harvard Pluralism Project at Kendall Square Theatre. The interview was conducted by Boston Globe staff member Janice Page, and below are some of the highlights from this talk.
Question: “This is a common subject. What did you think you could contribute to it?”
Guggenheim: “They [the studio] wanted actors at first, but I met her and realized no one can really play her. They asked me to do the film and I said I needed a few days to think about it, and then I agreed…I really connected to the father-daughter story—I have daughters of my own, and I don’t quite understand them [laughs]…I’m interested in the invisible forces, even in the United States, pulling at girls going to school. I want Malala to be remembered as more than a girl who was shot by Taliban.”
Question: “Did you originally have a different direction for the documentary?”
Guggenheim: “I found Malala has such forgiveness and lack of bitterness through faith, and then the project took on a life of its own.”
Question: “What is it about the idea of the educated girl that seems so frightening?”
Asani: “Because she is able to assert critically and make observations. This is a matter of how to educate human beings. There is a Western misperception that most common in the Arab world is Islam as an actor, as a thing, but it’s really just a concept that people use as reason. Unfortunately, the Taliban uses it for violence. Also, there is the misperception that is Islam is all the same: It is not.”
Guggenheim: “Violent actors are a small part of the Muslim world and our understanding must be deeper than we think. We can blame thins news, such as 60 Seconds, but what are we doing? We consume a negative diet of information.”
Question: “In the making of the movie, did you struggle with how to show gore? Or how to avoid being exploitative?”
Guggenheim: “The shooting is a moment, but I didn’t want it to be the moment. Before filming anything, I sat, just me and Malala, in her office. I had no agenda, no premise, no camera crews. I didn’t want to be exploitative, I wanted to show her as a girl. The animations came from this. I also wanted to show what a 14-year-old girl would imagine while she’s laying in bed at night, wondering at how she got her name. I wanted to invite people into this narrative, because pure violence is scary.”
Dr. Cesari: “The goal is to humanize narrative, not just to think of Islam through political terms. Politics has a way of dehumanizing, while art humanizes issues. The aesthetics of those forms transforms narratives and connects people on the level of the human experience. Particular contexts, in art, can be universalized because of an element…Here, silent is finding a voice.”
Question: “This is a common subject. What did you think you could contribute to it?”
Guggenheim: “They [the studio] wanted actors at first, but I met her and realized no one can really play her. They asked me to do the film and I said I needed a few days to think about it, and then I agreed…I really connected to the father-daughter story—I have daughters of my own, and I don’t quite understand them [laughs]…I’m interested in the invisible forces, even in the United States, pulling at girls going to school. I want Malala to be remembered as more than a girl who was shot by Taliban.”
Question: “Did you originally have a different direction for the documentary?”
Guggenheim: “I found Malala has such forgiveness and lack of bitterness through faith, and then the project took on a life of its own.”
Question: “What is it about the idea of the educated girl that seems so frightening?”
Asani: “Because she is able to assert critically and make observations. This is a matter of how to educate human beings. There is a Western misperception that most common in the Arab world is Islam as an actor, as a thing, but it’s really just a concept that people use as reason. Unfortunately, the Taliban uses it for violence. Also, there is the misperception that is Islam is all the same: It is not.”
Guggenheim: “Violent actors are a small part of the Muslim world and our understanding must be deeper than we think. We can blame thins news, such as 60 Seconds, but what are we doing? We consume a negative diet of information.”
Question: “In the making of the movie, did you struggle with how to show gore? Or how to avoid being exploitative?”
Guggenheim: “The shooting is a moment, but I didn’t want it to be the moment. Before filming anything, I sat, just me and Malala, in her office. I had no agenda, no premise, no camera crews. I didn’t want to be exploitative, I wanted to show her as a girl. The animations came from this. I also wanted to show what a 14-year-old girl would imagine while she’s laying in bed at night, wondering at how she got her name. I wanted to invite people into this narrative, because pure violence is scary.”
Dr. Cesari: “The goal is to humanize narrative, not just to think of Islam through political terms. Politics has a way of dehumanizing, while art humanizes issues. The aesthetics of those forms transforms narratives and connects people on the level of the human experience. Particular contexts, in art, can be universalized because of an element…Here, silent is finding a voice.”
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