Sonita, Iran/Germany/Switzerland, 2015, 91 min.



Studies and Stories of Exile is a documentary film series taking place over three Fridays in September and October that explores the concept of exile in a geographically broad and thematically subtle sense. Considering the term’s Latin root, exilium, meaning banishment, the selected films question the slippage in terminology that has taken place in contemporary political debate, and they demand that we examine the true meanings of terms such as “exile,” “refugeeism,” “internally displaced person,” and “immigrant.” As the directors of these films show, exile can be political, professional, personal, familial, or cultural. This film series is part of the Malbin Program Series: Studies and Stories of Exile, and is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Artists in Exile: Expressions of Loss and Hope. Generously sponsored by the Lydia Winston Malbin Fund.



Iranian director Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami documents the experience of Sonita Alizadeh, an 18-year-old Afghani refugee living in a Tehran shelter who is intent on becoming an internationally famous rapper. Though Sonita thinks of Rihanna and Michael Jackson as her spiritual parents, her actual family intends to sell her as a bride for $9,000. The raw, defiantly joyful film depicts a changing, turbulent Iran and tests the limits of the documentarian-subject relationship, as the female bond between filmmaker and star changes the course of both of their lives.