He Named Me Malala(2015)
dir. Davis Guggenheim
Shot for speaking up. She spoke up again.
Where to watch: Rent on Apple TVLetterboxd ↗
After surviving a Taliban assassination attempt for advocating girls' education, Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai becomes a global activist and the youngest Nobel Peace laureate.
Why it’s here
Malala is centered as a real teenager, not just a symbol — impatient with her brothers, self-conscious about crushes, alongside the advocacy. Both things are true about her at once, and the film doesn't flatten her into only one.
Where This Film Lives
- Setting
- Pakistan
Read Alongside
Books that share a topic, theme, or setting with this film.
Amal Unbound
Aisha Saeed
The debt wasn't hers. The cage is.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Mohammed Hanif
Everyone wants to kill General Zia. Someone succeeds.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Cracking India
Bapsi Sidhwa
A Lahore girl watches Partition arrive in her neighborhood.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Exit West
Mohsin Hamid
Doors appear that lead to other countries. They leave. Everything changes.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Tamas
Bhisham Sahni
Four days of Partition violence. Every side. No heroes.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Mohsin Hamid
A Pakistani man in New York watches America turn against him.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
The Wandering Falcon
Jamil Ahmad
Pakistan-Afghan borderlands in nine linked stories.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Train to Pakistan
Khushwant Singh
A border village in 1947. The trains arrive carrying bodies.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST