Cinema Releases - Sonita

Sonita

On DVD and VoD now

★★★★★

"Triumphant documentary...Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami’s absorbing portrait of a refugee in Iran is endlessly surprising..."
Nigel M. Smith, The Guardian

★★★★
"A warm, uplifting but often challenging film – a compelling human drama packed with searching questions about artistic responsibility and the nature of charity."
Tom Huddleston, Time Out

★★★★

"This affecting documentary follows the fortunes of an Afghan teenager living in exile whose family want to sell her into marriage…the kid is a force of nature, and it’s impossible not to be swept along by the powerful tide of her story."
Leslie Felperin, The Guardian

★★★★

"Sonita wants to be a rapper. No other medium could contain the quantity and rush of her lyrics — about voting, about pitiless fathers, about the threat of an old and strange husband. “I’m like a sheep grown/on whom others will dine” she sings, rocking, while the engineers in the Tehran recording studio look on nervously."

Antonia Quirke, The Financial Times
★★★★

"An Afghan teen uses rap to attack the practice of selling daughters into marriage in this powerful documentary… Profile of an irrepressible wordsmith
Jonathan Romney, The Observer

★★★★
" Inspiring and disturbing."
Kate Muir, The Times

"The film is at its most complicated during the interventions made by Ghaemmaghami into the action. Off-screen voices warn her that she shouldn’t interfere but she makes no pretence of editorial impartiality...Ghaemmaghami could be accused of steering the action to make a stronger film but her attempt to save Sonita from being married off is far more important than that."
Ryan Gilbey, The New Statesman

"This extraordinary documentary could almost be a work of fiction."

Steve Rose, Guardian Guide

"Inspiring…a certified crowdpleaser...Sonita is engaging, articulate, intelligent and wholly admirable in her audacious campaigning against forced marriage in particular and misogynistic Islam in general…""
Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter

"SONITA is the deftly done story of a young Afghan woman in Tehran who dreams of rap stardom while her family plans to sell her as a bride."
Kenneth Turan, LA Times

"Everyone falls in love with Sonita in this film…"
Fionnuala Halligan, Screen Daily

“Maghami is such a skilled, aware filmmaker that her action, beyond its obvious humanitarian value, falls into a glorious tradition of meta-filmmaking in Iranian cinema - it immediately conjured Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up."
Erin Teachman, DC Metro Theater Arts

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A FILM BY	Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami
WITH	Sonita Alizadeh
PRODUCER	Gerd Haag
CO-PRODUCERS	Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami, Aline Schmid
CREATIVE PRODUCER	Kerstin Krieg
EDITOR	Rune Schweitzer
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY	Behrouz Badrouj, Ali Mohammad Ghasemi, Mohammad Haddadi
	Arastoo Givi, Torben Bernard, Parviz Arefi, Ala Mohseni
SCORE MUSIC	Moritz Denis
MUSIC LAYOUT	Guillaume Wuhrmann
ORIGINAL SONGS BY	Sonita Alizadeh, Sepandarmaz Elahi Shirazi
LINE PRODUCER GERMANY	Cornelia Kellers
LINE PRODUCER IRAN	Morteza Ebrahimi, Hosein Beshgard
LINE PRODUCER AFGHANISTAN	Ghodsieh Shahnematollahi, Sahra Karimi
LINE PRODUCER SWITZERLAND	Catherine Muller
COMMISSIONING EDITORS	NDR/arte: Claudia Cellarius; RTS Radio Télévision Suisse,
	Unité des films Documentaires: Irène Challand, Gaspard Lamunière;
	SRG SSR: Sven Wälti, Gregory Catella


A PRODUCTION BY TAG/TRAUM
IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH INTERMEZZO FILM,
ROKHSAREH GHAEM MAGHAMI,NDR, RTS
Radio Télévision Suisse, SRG SSR, DR
IN CO-OPERATION WITH arte
FUNDED BY Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, BKM,
Bundesamt für Kultur (EDI), Cinéforom
und Loterie Romande, Chicken & Egg Pictures,
IDFA Bertha Fund
SPECIAL THANKS TO The Asian Pitch Commissioners,
Public Television Service Foundation,
Korean Broadcasting System

© TAG/TRAUM – INTERMEZZO –
ROKHSAREH GHAEMMAGHAMI 2015
91 minutes Cert PG