Filmmaker Sahra Mani has a difficult story to tell, and for many women, it can be seen as a cautionary tale. Her documentary Bread & Roses follows the trials and tribulations of three educated women in Afghanistan as they fight to regain their autonomy after the Taliban stripped away their employment, independence, and basic human rights once they seized Kabul in 2021.
The “gender apartheid” that has taken place in Afghanistan is a serious crisis in which women and children are being horrifically maltreated for attempting to confront the oppression they have faced since that upheaval. Since 2021, millions of women have been stripped of their autonomy as the Taliban put barbaric restrictions in place that limited the movement, the freedoms, and the will of women.
Almost immediately, women were deprived of their ability to earn an education, as schooling beyond grade six was prohibited. They were forbidden to hold a job or any type of employment. They could not be seen outdoors without a chaperone. A woman could not travel outside the borders of Afghanistan unaccompanied and without reason. Punishments for violations of the restrictions included torture, imprisonment, exile, and death. In essence, the Taliban are attempting to negate women from the culture and public life while denying them the ability to fight back.
Or so they hope.
In Bread & Roses, a trio of women who have been oppressed by the Taliban share their struggle with Western audiences through Mani’s lens. Former government employee Sharifa lives an insular life indoors as the Taliban restricts her movements outside the household while dentist Zahra turned to activism after she was forced to give up her hard-earned occupation. She uses her former dental practice as a covert meeting spot for other frustrated Afghan women. The camera also follows Taranom, a Pakistani refugee and activist who now lives as an exile due to her beliefs.
(Photo by Stewart Cook/Apple TV+ via Getty Images)
Working with producers Jennifer Lawrence and Justine Ciarrocchi, as well as executive producers Malala Yousafzai and Farhad Khosravi, Mani placed herself in precarious circumstances to make sure the story of these women were heard.
“There’s been so many challenges,” said the director, “When my camerawoman tried to leave the country and she couldn’t get a visa, she had to be smuggled to one of the neighboring countries, and I lost contact with her. She [wasn’t forced to] leave the country because she worked on this documentary, but because she was an artist and she was at risk in general.”
But despite the dangers for the filmmaker and her crew, Mani knew that it was important for the audiences to see the abuse at the hands of the Taliban so viewers could perceive the full force of their tyranny and subjugation upon millions of women.
“After the collapse of Kabul, I was out of Afghanistan attending a film festival. When I found out about what happened, I thought what can I do, especially for the women who were left behind and are the only breadwinners of their family, because they are not allowed to go and earn money. So I started working with charities, trying to provide them with urgent needs, [which is] how I met so many women,” said the helmer. “They started sending me videos about their daily lives and their fight against the Taliban.
“In the beginning I decided to simply document them, but when Jennifer Lawrence expressed her willingness to support this project, we built the team on the ground.…That’s how our journey started.”
Executive producer Yousafzai backed Mani in her need to spread awareness about the Taliban’s savage treatment of women and their effort to silence their voices.
“I have been involved in activism to raise awareness about the systematic oppression the Taliban have imposed upon Afghan women and girls, which Afghan women activists and other human rights experts call ‘gender apartheid,’” said Yousafzai. “And when I came across this documentary, I immediately said yes to becoming a part of it because we really need to bring attention to the lives of Afghan women under the Taliban. I think this topic is not getting as much attention as it deserves.”
“We are hearing about the Taliban issuing these decrees and edicts limiting women from work, education, and other opportunities,” Yousafzai continues. “And this documentary helps us to see what that day-to-day life for Afghan women looks like because you see these three women who had worked so hard to complete their education and get the jobs that they wanted, but suddenly, within days and months, all of that is taken away from them, and it’s no longer a reality for them to be working women and to be out in public anymore. The Taliban are, in essence, criminalizing human rights for women—they cannot be outside home, they cannot get their education, and if they do so, they get punished for it.”
Bread & Roses paints a grim picture of the reality of the Afghani women whose lives have been destroyed by the Taliban. But it is more than an astonishing film; it is also an important example of what can happen if dangerous political movements are left unchecked by the rest of the world.
“So when you watch this documentary, what you realize is that, you know, how could this even happen? Why is there so little accountability against the Taliban?” states Yousafzai. “That’s why the campaign to support Afghan women is so crucial, and putting women on the agenda is critical, and the codification of gender apartheid is so important, because to make it a crime against humanity will help us hold the Taliban accountable, and those who normalize relations with the Taliban accountable as well, and it will really set a precedent that this should never be happening in Afghanistan and this should never be happening in any part of the world.”
Mani, who previously used her skills as a filmmaker to shed light on the corrupt Afghan judicial system with her powerful documentary A Thousand Girls Like Me, knew she needed to document the crimes against Afghani women and children.
“I think it was, for me, the only thing I could do. For millions of women and people, children, girls, they are living in such a difficult situation. And I believe that it’s a privilege to be able to use the tool of cinema to tell the story of people who are voiceless, and also it’s a privilege to have such a wonderful team around me—Malalai and Jennifer Lawrence and all the rest of team that worked on this project—and they trusted me,” said the filmmaker.
“It’s harder to have the trust of these women in Afghanistan, and they shared their stories with us and asked us to please share their voices with the world. So I never look at it as so much work. I look at it as a wonderful opportunity to use it as a tool for change.”
Bread & Roses is available on Apple TV+ on November 22, 2024. –ERIN MAXWELL
