Directed by Oscar-winning documentarist, Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for Superman), and filmed over an 18-month-period, He Named me Malala is an intimate look inside the quotidian life of the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and feminist activist, Malala Yousafzai. The film tells the story of how Malala’s father, Ziauddin named his daughter Malala, in honour of the legendary Pashtun folk heroine, Malalai of Maiwand.

As well as telling Malala’s story of growing up in Pakistan’s Swat Valley during Taliban reign, how she began anonymously blogging for the BBC and was subsequently shot by a Talib on her school bus, aged only 15, the film documents Malala’s personal life – her relationship with her father father Ziauddin, her mother Toor Pekai and brothers Khushal and Atal. Malal is exposed not only as an extraordinarily brave young woman, but as an ordinary girl who simply refuses to be silenced.

We learn of her story through animated sequences, hand-held camera snap-shots and interviews and Malala is revealed to be not only an intelligent leader, but also a sharp young woman with a devilish sense of humour. “What inspires me is a father who saw in his daughter someone who could do anything and who believed in her,” says Guggenheim. “There’s a moment when you have to choose whether to be silent or to stand up.”

In cinemas nationwide 6 November.

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