Sonita, an Afghan-born rapper, gives voice to the concerns of young women. Small, but feisty, Sonita lives in Tehran with her sister and niece. Aside from two brothers, the rest of the family lives in Afghanistan. As the documentary begins, she's on the verge of eviction. Sonita tries to kick-start her hip-hop career while looking for a new apartment, but has trouble finding anyone willing to take a risk on an undocumented immigrant. It also angers the 18-year-old that so many of her friends are in arranged marriages determined by dowry. "We don't have prices like sheep," she tells one prospective bride. Although her brothers don't beat her, one rips up her pop star posters when she refuses to return to Afghanistan to marry. Iranian law also forbids her from performing solo, so she sings with a friend, although she writes all of their material. Sonita's widowed mother, who travels to Tehran to bring her home, disapproves of her daughter's musical aspirations. She plans to sell Sonita to a husband in order to pay for her son's wedding, so her daughter looks for alternate ways to raise money. She even pleads with director Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami to help. While Sonita is a documentary and not a thriller, things do get rather twisty, with tears, treacherous trips, and surprising news from the United States. And in assisting her subject, Maghami crosses the line between filmmaker and friend, but her cautiously optimistic film would surely have come to a more pessimistic end otherwise. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)
Sonita
(2015) 91 min. In English & Farsi. DVD: $89: public libraries, $395: colleges & universities. Women Make Movies. PPR. Volume 32, Issue 5
Sonita
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