For more than 15 years, Bollywood star turned human rights advocate Somy Ali and her nonprofit No More Tears have rescued several men, women and children from domestic violence and sex trafficking. Now, a new docuseries follows Somy’s work as she illustrates the horrors and frequency of abuse, profiling the dangers and emotional impact of transforming a victim into a survivor. Fight or Flight documents Somy’s 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 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.
She said, “Fight or Flight is a raw and intense docuseries that follows the work at my nonprofit, No More Tears. Through discovery+, I now have an international platform to shine a spotlight on what victims of domestic violence and human trafficking experience. It took me over 40 years to tell my own story of abuse and I think it’s time we all start to truly understand the ramifications of these epidemics and that everyone deals with their own journey on their own time, and that it’s never too late to speak out, no matter what. Sharing my journey has been extremely cathartic, and perhaps the most liberated I have ever felt. My purpose in life is to save as many lives as possible, and I hope that through this docuseries, more victims will understand that they are not alone, that they don’t have to suffer in silence, and that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
In 2007, 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.
