For more than 15 years, Bollywood star turned human rights advocate Somy Ali and her groundbreaking nonprofit No More Tears have rescued thousands of men, women, and children from domestic violence and sex trafficking. Now, a new unflinching docuseries intimately follows Somy’s work as she illustrates the horrors and frequency of abuse, profiling the very real dangers and emotional impact of transforming a victim into a survivor. FIGHT OR FLIGHT documents Somy’s intense, complex, and sometimes heartbreaking work while illuminating the stories of those who retake control of their lives and refuse to be defined by their abuse. The first three episodes of FIGHT OR FLIGHT will be available to stream on discovery+ beginning Thursday, May 26. Three remaining episodes will drop weekly on Thursdays.
With every episode of FIGHT OR FLIGHT, the clock is ticking as Somy works with real victims: it’s a race against time to extricate them from the situations from which they seek to escape; secure legal, medical and educational counsel; and, find them a safe place to stay while working alongside them to rebuild their lives to give them the independence they’ve been denied for so long. Shot as a follow-style docuseries, viewers will go along with Somy as she navigates the best way to help these victims, experiences the emotional highs and lows of advocacy, and discusses her own journey as she reckons with her traumatic past and the abuse she herself suffered as a young woman.
In the premiere episode, Somy works alongside law enforcement to bring a woman and her son to safety from an alleged volatile abuser, meets with a sex trafficking victim who wants to rebuild her life entirely, and assists a woman in a fight for financial freedom. In each case, Somy devotes herself fully and works tirelessly to keep these survivors safe and from returning to the circumstances from which they sought to escape, but sometimes has to cope with devastating consequences.
“Having our cameras capture the painfully important and intense work that Somy does is an incredible honor, hopefully empowering many victims of abuse and trafficking to realize that they do not need to suffer in silence,” said Jason Sarlanis, President of Crime and Investigative Content, Linear and Streaming. “Somy’s mission is driven by her personal passion and unparalleled devotion to turning victims into survivors. With instances of domestic abuse unfortunately skyrocketing during the pandemic it’s more critical than ever that we bring much-needed attention to this issue.”
About Somy Ali
Founder, “No More Tears”
A tireless and passionate victim advocate, Somy Ali has been committed to helping victims of domestic abuse and sex trafficking for over more than 15 years. In 2007, after an illustrious Bollywood career, she founded No More Tears, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization with the sole mission of rescuing men, women, and children from abusive environments and traffickers. NMT provides direct support and since its inception has transformed thousands of victims into survivors. As a survivor herself of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and rape in her teenage years, Somy is committed to NMT helping as many victims as possible. Outside of her work with NMT, Somy has used her expansive education in psychology, filmmaking, and broadcast journalism to create a number of powerful short films that tackled abortion, domestic violence and teenage suicide.
In 2011, Somy was honored with the American Heritage Award from the American Immigration Council for her work with No More Tears, The Daily Point of Light Award by President George H. W. Bush in 2015, and The National Domestic Violence Month “A Proclamation” by President Barack Obama. Full bio here.
FIGHT OR FLIGHT is produced for discovery+ by Cineflix Productions with J.C. Mills, David Casey, and Diana Nolan as Executive Producers. Tim Baney is the Executive Producer for discovery+.
About discovery+
discovery+ is the definitive non-fiction, real life subscription streaming service. discovery+ has the largest-ever content offering of any new streaming service at launch, featuring a wide range of exclusive, original series across popular, passion verticals in which Discovery brands have a strong leadership position, including lifestyle and relationships; home and food; true crime; paranormal; adventure and natural history; as well as science, tech and the environment, and a slate of high-quality documentaries. For more, visit discoveryplus.com or find it on a variety of platforms and devices, including ones from Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Roku and Samsung.
