Malala Yousafzai and Emma Watson launch the 2015 Into Film Festival

06 Nov 2015

4 mins
Malala Yousafzai and Emma Watson at IFF15
Malala Yousafzai and Emma Watson at IFF15

Over 10,000 students witnessed the meeting of two of the world's most inspiring women at the launch of the Into Film Festival 2015 - Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, and UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson.

Malala's story, so brilliantly captured in Davis Guggenheim's documentary He Named Me Malala, is one of courage, resilience, and the importance for everyone to have the right to an education. After the pupil premiere of He Named Me Malala opened the Festival, Malala and Emma took part in a live Q&A session that was broadcast simultaneously for audiences in cinemas nationwide.

Emma began by asking how Malala felt to have her story shown to so many people to launch the Festival: "Hopefully the message will spread and influence more people to come together and join the campaign, the Malala Fund. It's not just that you watch the film, but you do something. I want to be not just a movie but a movement."

Emma also asked questions submitted by audience members. Grace, from Mill Primary School in Leicester, asked 'why is it important for girls and boys to be treated equally?', to which Malala responded very succinctly: "Your gender should not make any difficulty in the choices you make. It's a very simple thing: it's about equality; it's about feminism; it's about saying we're all human beings, so why would you separate us because or gender is different?"

The event was the beginning of three weeks of film screenings, Q&As and filmmaking workshops at the 2015 Into Film Festival, all with the aim of placing film at the heart of children and young people's learning.

This year's Into Film Festival 2016 will take place between November 9 - 25, and you can sign up to our Festival newsletter now to be the first to know about the exciting events we've got coming up - and to discover details of priority booking for club leaders.

Emma and Malala on Equality

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