Buy your day pass to attend this and other events at WOW: Women of the World festival Chester

Director: Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami
Stars: Sonita Alizadeh, Latifah Alizadeh, Fadia Alizadeh

Age Rating: PG
Duration: 90 mins

If 18-year old Sonita had a say in things, Michael Jackson would be her father and Rihanna her mother. She captures her dream of being a famous rapper in her scrapbook. For the time being, her only fans are the other teenage girls in a Tehran shelter. There, Sonita, a refugee from Afghanistan, gets counseling for the traumas she has suffered and guidance in shaping her future. Her family has a very different future planned for her: as a bride she’s worth $9,000. What’s more, women aren’t allowed to sing in Iran. How can Sonita still succeed in making her dreams come true?

Followed by a Q&A with Mia Bayes, Bird’s Eye View & Claire Griffiths.

Claire Griffiths is the university chair in Area Studies and professor of Francophone postcolonial studies at the University of Chester. Her research work focusing on gender and social justice in a developing world context began in Morocco, and over the course of the next decade she completed several periods of research and writing in the US, and in Africa, including Senegal, Gabon, and Niger.  She came to Chester from the University of Hull in September 2009 to take up a post as head of Modern Languages, she served six years in the role before taking on her present role as university chair and research professor. She is the author of Globalizing the Postcolony: contesting discourses of development and gender in Francophone Africa (Lexington Books, 2011) and a number of books and articles in French and English on aspects of colonial and postcolonial politics, culture, discourse and gender policy.

Hosted by Nicky Beaumont, Storyhouse’s Film & Digital Programme Manager

Click here to buy your day pass for WOW: Chester