A film from Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai documenting the oppression of Afghan women by the Taliban was “emotionally challenging” to complete, Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani said.
The Apple TV+ documentary titled Bread & Roses exposes the realities faced by women in Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021 – which first drew Lawrence to the project.
“I felt a huge passion to make this project just as a human,” the Hollywood actress told the PA news agency.
The 34-year-old said “there were so many times where we were in and out of contact” with the director, who was capturing the “spirit and resilience” of Afghan women fighting for their autonomy.
“We knew that we were helping her facilitate getting equipment on the ground, and that she was in contact with these women, and that we were getting footage.
“But there was so much that I did not know until we had an assembly, until we were in post,” producer Lawrence said, referring to the process of putting the footage together to appear on screen.
“One of the things that I didn’t know was that it was going to be showcasing the women’s resistance in Afghanistan,” Lawrence, who won an Oscar in 2013 for her role in Silver Linings Playbook opposite Bradley Cooper, said.
Director Mani worked with a group of activist women who provided a window into their reality – forbidden from work, school and leaving their homes.
“The difficulty of making this film was not only logistical and being in contact with so many people in different parts of the world,” filmmaker Mani told PA.
“But also it was more emotionally challenging for all of us working on this project, because it’s really deep effect on us while we were watching the first rough cut of material, because we were facing with the human story of loss, resilience and, of course, hope.
“We did our best to tell their story with authenticity and respect to these women.”
This year marked 12 years since Ms Yousafzai narrowly avoided death after being shot in the head by the Taliban for her campaigning for girls’ rights to education.
Ms Yousafzai said the new documentary gives “visibility” to Afghan women and girls during what she claims experts are calling a “gender apartheid”.
“It gives them that platform to bring attention to their stories and really make their voice the centre of what’s happening there,” she told PA.
“It is shocking how Afghan women are sometimes not even included in the rooms where decisions about them are made.
“…I hope that this documentary can help raise awareness about what is actually happening there, that the situation has already worsened, and it adds to the global movement that Afghan women are leading right now to push countries, for example, to codify gender apartheid in the crime against humanity treaty and to hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes.”
Bread & Roses was released on Apple TV+ on Friday.
