Gul Makai is a 2020 Indian

biographical drama A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or group of people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudrama films and histo ...

film directed by H.E. Amjad Khan, written by Bhaswati Chakrabarty, and produced by Techno Films. The film is based on the life of

Malala Yousafzai Malala Yousafzai (; , pronunciation: ; born 12 July 1997) is a Pakistani female education activist, film and television producer, and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the age of 17. She is the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history, ...

, a Pakistani activist for

female education Female education is a catch-all term for a complex set of issues and debates surrounding education (primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, and health education in particular) for girls and women. It is frequently called girls ...

and the youngest ever

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

laureate. Reem Shaikh portrays

in the film, which also features

Om Puri Om Prakash Puri, (18 October 1950 – 6 January 2017) was an Indian actor who appeared in mainstream commercial Hindi films as well as Urdu, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, English, Punjabi, Gujarati, Telugu, and Marathi films, as well as ind ...

in his final acting role. The film was released on 31 January 2020.

Plot

The film portrays the life of

, focusing on her experiences in the

Swat Valley Swat District (), also known as the Swat Valley, is a district in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Known for its stunning natural beauty, the district is a popular tourist destination. With a population of 2,687,384 per th ...

of northwestern

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

and her advocacy for education rights, particularly for girls and women. In 2009, the

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

took control of the Swat Valley and imposed strict restrictions, including banning girls from attending school. During this period, Yousafzai began writing under the pseudonym "Gul Makai" for the

BBC Urdu BBC Urdu () is a digital television station covering the Indian subcontinent in the Urdu language. It was the Urdu language station of the BBC World Service, accompanied by its website, which served as a news portal and provided online access to ...

website, where she documented the challenges faced by girls in accessing education under

rule. Yousafzai's advocacy for education drew international attention and recognition. However, her activism also made her a political target. In 2012, she survived an

assassination Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...

attempt by a

gunman, an event that further amplified her message on the global stage.

Cast

* Reem Shaikh as

Atul Kulkarni Atul Kulkarni (born 10 September 1965) is an Indian actor, producer and screenwriter who works in Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, English, Odia and Telugu language films. Kulkarni won the National Award for the Best Supporting Act ...

Ziauddin Yousafzai Ziauddin Yousafzai (; ; born 20 April 1969) is a Pakistani educational entrepreneur and activist best known as the father of Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who protested against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan opposition to the education rights ...

Divya Dutta Divya Dutta (born 25 September 1977) is an Indian actress. She has appeared primarily in Hindi and Punjabi language, Punjabi cinema, and has received accolades including a National Film Award and a Filmfare OTT Awards, Filmfare OTT Award. Dutt ...

as Toor Pekai Yousafzai *

as General

Ashfaq Parvez Kayani Ashfaq Parvez Kayani (Urdu: ; born 20 April 1952), is a retired four-star general of the Pakistan Army who served as the eighth chief of army staff, being appointed on 29 November 2007 after his predecessor Pervez Musharraf retired from his ...

Arif Zakaria Arif Zakaria (born 11 November 1966) is an Indian actor. He has had roles in many films, beginning with his debut film '' Darmiyaan'' (1997), '' 1947: Earth'' (1998), ''Dance Like a Man'' (2004), and biographical projects '' Mardana'' and the co ...

Sufi Muhammad Sufi Muhammad bin Alhazrat Hassan (Urdu: ; born 1933 – 11 July 2019) was a Pakistani Sunni Salafi cleric and militant, and the founder of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a militant group (declared a terrorist outfit and banned in ...

Mukesh Rishi Mukesh Rishi (born 19 April 1956) is an Indian actor and film producer who works primarily in Hindi and Telugu films. He has also appeared in Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Marathi and Tamil films. He got his first break in Hindi in 1993 with ...

Maulana Fazlullah Fazal Hayat (1974 – 15 June 2018), more commonly known by his pseudonym Mullah Fazlullah (Pashto/), was an Islamist jihadist militant who was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, and was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban P ...

Abhimanyu Singh Abhimanyu Singh is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil films. He is notably known for his roles in the political films '' Gulaal'' (2009) and '' Rakta Charita'' (2010). Career Abhimanyu Singh made his debut wi ...

Hakimullah Mehsud Hakimullah Mehsud (born Jamshed Mehsud; − 1 November 2013), also known as Zulfiqar Mehsud, was a Pakistani militant who was the second emir of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan from 2009 to 2013. It was confirmed by TTP that he was killed in a U.S. d ...

Pankaj Tripathi Pankaj Tripathi, born as Pankaj Tiwari (5 September 1976), is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Hindi films and series. He is the recipient of two National Film Awards and a Filmfare Award. After studying acting at the National School ...

Baitullah Mehsud Baitullah Mehsud ( – 5 August 2009) was a Pakistani militant. He was one of the founders and a leader of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) in Waziristan. He formed the TTP from an alliance of about five militant groups in December 2007.Abbas, Hassan ...

Sharib Hashmi Sharib Hashmi (born 25 January 1976) is an Indian actor, writer, producer and director who works in the Hindi cinema. He is best known for portraying J. K. Talpade in the Amazon Prime Video series ''The Family Man'' (2019-2021) for which he won ...

as Ataullah Khan * Kamlesh Gill as Malala's grandmother * Chandrashekhar Dutta as Muslim Khan * Ajay Chourey as Musa Khankhel * Sayyed Irshad Ali Khan as Captain Najam Riaz Raja * Ganesh Yadav as General Sanaullah Khan

Production

H.E. Amjad Khan decided to make a film on Yousafzai's life and advocacy in 2012 following her assassination attempt. After the film was announced, Bhaswati Chakrabarty spent four years researching and writing the script. Several hundred actresses auditioned for the role of Malala; 16-year-old Bangladeshi student, Fatima Sheikh, was initially cast. However, safety concerns arose due to backlash from religious extremists and Sheikh had to withdraw. The role was then given to child actress Reem Shaikh. Veteran

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is primarily produced in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (former name of Mumbai) and "Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". The in ...

actors

and Arif Zakaria were cast in supporting roles. Khan stated that physical resemblance to the characters' real-life counterparts was a key casting consideration. ''Gul Makai'' began production in late 2016, filming on location in

Bhuj Bhuj () is a city and the headquarters of Kutch district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Etymology According to legend, Kutch (Kachchh) was ruled by the Nāga chieftains in the past. Sagai, a queen of Sheshapattana, who was married to King B ...

(Gujarat) and

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

. Filming in

Kashmir Kashmir ( or ) is the Northwestern Indian subcontinent, northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term ''Kashmir'' denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir P ...

, however, was delayed due to ongoing conflict in the region. Filming resumed and concluded in January 2018. The film was edited by

National Award The National Film Awards are awards for artistic and technical merit given for "Excellence within the Indian film industry". Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian P ...

-winning editor, Praveen Angre, and included extensive

VFX Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action fo ...

work to recreate the

landscape and combat scenes.

Soundtrack

The film's score was composed by

Amar Mohile Amar Mohile is an Indian film score composer who works predominantly in Hindi films. He is the son of composer Anil Mohile. Discography ;As background score composer As composer * 2000 - ''Krodh'' * 2004 - '' Ek Hasina Thi'' * 2010 - ' ...

. The title song was written by Bhaswati Chakrabarty, and the remaining songs were written and composed by H.E. Amjad Khan.

Reception

Udita Jhunjhunwala of

Firstpost Firstpost is an Indian news website owned by Network18 Group, which also runs CNN-News18 and CNBC TV18. It has posted misinformation on multiple occasions. The Network 18 group was originally owned by Raghav Bahl. In January 2012, the gro ...

gave the film 1 out of 5, writing, "Gul Makai is well-intentioned but as a film, it flails about, overusing background music, abruptly ending scenes, not convincingly recreating an environment and shortchanging its subject. The script feels like a compilation of information culled from news clippings, Wikipedia, and books on Malala. Best to go straight to the source material and bypass this ennui." Devesh Verma of

Filmfare ''Filmfare'' is an Indian English-language fortnightly magazine published by Worldwide Media. Acknowledged as one of India's most popular entertainment magazines, it publishes pieces involving news, interviews, photos, videos, reviews, events, ...

gave the film 2 out of 5, writing, "There is a clip from a speech by the real Malala at the end credits which offers more impact about education of girls worldwide than this two hour film because it showed a person's burning desire to bring about a change."

References

External links

* * * {{Malala Yousafzai Indian biographical drama films Films set in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Malala Yousafzai 2020 films 2020s Hindi-language films Military of Pakistan in films Films about terrorism in Asia Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa fiction Films about Nobel laureates Films shot in Jammu and Kashmir Films shot in Gujarat Films shot in Mumbai Works about the Taliban Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) films Cultural depictions of Pakistani people