Yes, you’ll want to see ALL the films at the Greater Farmington Film Festival but here are 10 good reasons to see GIRL RISING on Saturday, March 8th, at 7:15 pm at the Farmington Civic Theater.
- You’ll want to see each of these 9 girls’ amazing stories of struggle and change brought to life on the big screen. With the creative contributions of authors from each girl’s country, as well as award-winning international artists (Alicia Keys, Liam Neeson, Meryl Streep, Salma Hayek, and more), you’ll learn and be moved by the transformative power of educating girls.
2. You’ll learn about Sokha: a Cambodian child of the dump, orphaned and forced to pick through garbage to survive. But, through a series of miracles, Sokha finds her way to school and, like a phoenix, rises to become a star student on the brink of a brilliant and once unimaginable future.
3. You’ll discover Wadley: just 7 when the world comes crashing down around her. Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake destroys her home and school, but it cannot break her irrepressible spirit nor extinguish her thirst to learn, even as she’s turned away from the schoolhouse day after day.
4. Though her brothers go to school, Suma is forced into bonded labor at age six. The Nepali girl endures years of grueling work by expressing her sorrow in beautiful music and lyrics. Suma glimpses a different future by learning to read, the first step on the road to freedom.
5. You’ll learn about Yasmin: a young Egyptian girl who falls prey to a violent attack but, rather than become a victim, becomes a superhero. Yasmin’s is the story of the triumph of imagination over a reality too painful to bear. 
6. When 13-year old Asmera is told she must marry, she does something shocking; she says no. Meet an Ethiopian family where a brother champions his younger sister’s cause to be educated and to be free.
7. You’ll meet Ruksana: her family are “pavement dwellers” – living on the streets of Kolkata, India, where her father has sacrificed everything to send his daughters to school. Ruksana’s life is filled with danger but she escapes into her artwork and draws strength from her father’s resolve.
8. Senna’s family struggles to survive in a bleak Peruvian mining town. Her father has dreams for her, and insists she go to school. There, she discovers the transformative power of poetry.
9. You’ll meet Mariama, a teenager from war-torn Sierra Leone, and the voice of the future. The first in her family to go to school, she has her own radio show, big dreams and boundless imagination.
10. And you’ll meet Amina, constrained by Afghan society, confined by her gender and expected only to serve men. But this child bride has had enough. She is determined to reject the limitations prescribed by society and to lead others to do the same.
and one more:
11. Girl Rising unites girls, women, boys and men who believe every girl has the right to go to school and the right to reach her full potential.
Check out the trailer below and pick up your tickets at the Farmington Civic Theater or purchase online at the festival web site.