Sonita

Pitch

If Sonita, at 18 years old, had had anything to say about it, she would have had Michael Jackson and Rihanna as parents. An Afghan refugee, clandestine in Iran, she had been living for the last ten years in the poor suburbs of Tehran. She dreamed of becoming an artist, a singer, in spite of the obstacles with which she was confronted. Her mother, in fact, was planning a completely different destiny for her; that of an arranged marriage and to be sold for the sum of 9000$. But Sonita did not intend to give in; forceful and full of passion, she challenged the codes of this tradition and fought for the right to live her life as she wanted.

“What interested me in Sonita was that she dreamed a thousand dreams. I could see no future for her. Her tragic destiny called out to me. Even if the Iranian government considered her as a citizen, the Afghan government, on the other hand, did not. She couldn’t get an identity card or any other official papers. She couldn't go to school or travel either. She couldn’t do anything.” Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami