The Light in Her Eyes premieres tomorrow night, July 19, 2012, on POV. Filmed right before the uprising in Syria erupted, the film relays the extraordinary story of a leader who challenges young Muslim women in her community to live according to Islam — without giving up their dreams.
Read what critics are saying about The Light in Her Eyes:
Just watch the inspiring, subversive twists and turns of faith-filled aspirations rising in young women through the hour-long documentary, The Light in Her Eyes. Watching these girls and women, you can envision how dramatically Islam could move further toward compassion and human rights, especially for the 500-million-plus Muslim women and girls around the world who are shackled by traditional cultural expectations.
— David Crumm, Read the Spirit
A remarkable documentary…
— Kamran Pasha, Huffington Post
Provocative and effective… The Light in Her Eyes is a reminder of limits of the labels “conservative” and “progressive”: they are distinctions that operate on many axes and change their colors against different backdrops.
— Rachel Riederer, The Revealer
The documentary… shows the delicate balance of Middle Eastern women in advancing intellectually while staying true to their faith… Light in someone’s eyes can be beautiful, but it’s also fragile.
— James D. Davis, ReligionWriter
Unique in… [its] unprecedented look into the rarely seen and seldomly independently defined world of Muslim women… progressive… The Light in Her Eyes is a must-see documentary that can open up an array of conversations on gender, politics, and religion, and it is also a film that introduces the viewer to the stories of real people, outside of the lens of judgment.
— Marwa Abed, Islamic Horizons
A thought-provoking film made by filmmakers who seemed to be passionate about their subjects, deferential towards the delicate framework of sociocultural norms they were operating from within and cognizant of the sociopolitical impact of media, especially of those whose subjects are Muslim women.
— Diana, Patheos
Watch The Light in Her Eyes now on the PBS mobile app, tune in to PBS starting Thursday night to watch on television (check local listings), or stream it online for a limited time starting Friday, July 20, 2012.
Then visit us on Twitter @povdocs, Facebook, or our companion site for The Light in Her Eyes to tell us what you thought of the film.
Keep up with all of this season’s films and get alerts when videos are available for streaming at http://pbs.org/pov, on Twitter @povdocs or on Facebook.
