Davis Guggenheim On Directing ‘He Named Me Malala’ [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO]

He Named Me Malala, the documentary about the young Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, was helmed by noted documentary director Davis Guggenheim.

Davis Guggenheim On ‘He Named Me Malala’

Known for the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman, Guggenheim was approached by Hollywood producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, who, upon meeting with Yousafzai, realized that the only way to do her story justice would be with a documentary – not a feature film. At first, Guggenheim wasn’t sure if he’d take the project, but it wasn’t long before Yousafzai’s story won him over.

“I was like well, let me read because I sort of knew the headlines of her story,” Guggenheim told uInterview in an exclusive interview. “And I think what’s special about this movie is people think they know who she is; she’s a girl who was shot on a school bus. But they don’t know the rich, epic quality of her story. That’s what was interesting to me – that there was so much more to her story than what we think we know.”

One of the interesting things that Guggenheim learned through his digging was the meaning behind Yousafzai’s name. The history of the name her parents gave her – Malala – ended up being a self-fulfilling prophesy. It fit the story of her courage so perfectly that Guggenheim believes it couldn’t have been written better in a Hollywood script.

“She’s named after a girl, like a Joan of Arc character in Pashtun lore…. She rallied the Afghan army to defeat the British heroically, but the girl leads them in a charge and is killed,” Guggenheim explained. “The way she leads them is speaking out and saying, ‘It’s better to live like a lion for one day than a slave for a hundred years.'”

“It has sort of an epic quality to it because Malala is named after this girl who speaks out and is killed for speaking out, and Malala speaks out as a young girl. She speaks out against the Taliban and is almost killed for speaking out,” Guggenheim added.

While Yousafzai is known for speaking out against injustices, of which she’s endured many, what Guggenheim finds just as admirable in her is her capacity for forgiveness. Despite the many hardships she’s faced from those who’ve wished to oppress her, she’s not embittered.

“She lives a life without any bitterness, without any anger,” said Guggenheim, in awe. “She was shot on her school bus, she lives in exile from her home, she can’t go home, her father can’t do what he loves to do, which is to teach, and yet they live a really truly forgiving life. To me that’s very inspiring.”

What Guggenheim hopes to get across with He Named Me Malala, which he believes feels as though it’s narrated by its subject, is that those who see it – young women in particular – are inspired to find their own voices.

“I hope people support Malala and her mission, but at the core my movies are about something more simple. In this case, it’s the act of finding your voice and speaking out,” Guggenheim told uInterview. “It appeals to me because I have two daughters who often don’t feel like their voice is relevant, so my hope is that girls everywhere feel like it’s their movie. Girls see that if an ordinary girl in Pakistan can speak out for what she believes that they can do that too.”

He Name Me Malala is currently in select theaters.