‘Sonita’ will open the nineteenth edition
Its premiere, on May 25th, will open five days with the best documentary cinema of the current international scene.
The Iranian director Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami films this emotional story, award winner in Sundance.
DocsBarcelona will be opened on May 25th with Sonita, the emotional story of an Afghan refugee in Iran who uses rap to conquer her freedom. Woman rights, refugee drama and how filmmakers should relate to their subjects are among the many topics of an impressive film that won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award.
Sonita is the first of more than forty films that will show the most poignant stories that shake the world. The best documentaries of the current international scene and its main characters will be in the Aribau Cinema Club and the CCCB from the 25th to the 29th of May. DocsBarcelona will distribute Sonita in Spain with The Documentary of the Month in more than 70 screens.
Rap to protest
Sonita Alizadeh is an 18 year old female, an undocumented Afghan illegal immigrant living in the poor suburbs of Tehran. She is a feisty, spirited, young woman who fights to live the way she wants, as an artist, singer, and musician in spite of all her obstacles she confronts in Iran and her conservative patriarchal family. In harsh contrast to her goal is the plan of her family – strongly advanced by her mother – to make her a bride and sell her to a new family. The price right now is about 9000 USD. Her protest hit, Brides for Sale, might change her destiny.
The relationship between filmmaker and subject
She is a charismatic artist determinate to talk about the hard reality she has to face with heartbreaking honesty. Will Sonita be forced into marriage? Will she succeed in recording her songs? Will her family manage to take her back to Afghanistan? Director Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami ends up personally involved in Sonita’s future, which confronts us to an interesting debate about the relationship between filmmaker and subject. A fascinating portray of a young woman in creative explosion that contrasts with the lack of freedom of her society.
