Jennifer Lawrence and Malala on their film about the Afghan women fighting back

Malala Yousafzai and Jennifer Lawrence spoke to the BBC about their new documentary Bread & Roses, which focuses on the stories and voices of Afghan women resisting the Taliban.

It’s called “gender apartheid” by the united nations. In August 2021, the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. A generation of women who had new opportunities to work, study, and hold public office under the previous administration found their lives turned upside down. girls are officially rejected secondary and university educationwomen are banned from most fields of work; Use parks and gymnasiums. beauty salon has been closed. Nowadays, even hearing women’s voices in public is prohibited. taliban said The new law is accepted by Afghan society and follows Islamic sharia law.

Bread & Roses is a documentary filmed from within Afghanistan by women who have resisted these restrictions on their lives. In the film, Dr. Zahra Mohammadi runs downstairs to her workplace and tells a caller, “Please don’t call me because I’m filming you.”

Dr. Mohammadi is a young dentist who celebrated their engagement just before the Taliban arrived in Kabul, weeks before the video was shot. She expresses to the audience her hope that she can still work under the new government. “The Taliban have never bothered the doctors before, they just ordered me to remove my name from the billboard,” she told the camera.

Dr. Mohammadi moved his office sign back to a prominent location on the street, keeping his name intact. It also shows the courage she shows throughout the film. Her dental clinic soon becomes a secret hub for female activists as Taliban restrictions close out secondary and university education for girls. As the film progresses, the female resistance group encounters arrests, prison sentences, and disappearances.

Filmed without a narrator and written in the Afghan languages ​​Dari and Pashto, Bread & Roses (the title is taken from a political slogan adopted by 20th century women’s suffrage) focuses primarily on its protagonists. It is a documentary full of realism that relies on To photograph ourselves. They are doing so with demonstrations demanding “bread, education and freedom.” They have filmed protesters being arrested, tear gas fired, and doors kicked in by the Taliban. “Girls who have been educated up to the 12th grade are confined to their homes,” one elderly protester said of the situation. “They dreamed of becoming doctors, engineers, teachers. It’s tragic. They had dreams.”

The film is likely to be directed by expatriate Afghan filmmaker Sahara Mani (who also made the hard-hitting 2018 documentary A Thousand Girls Like Me about the rape of Afghan girls), but Bread & Roses is backed by Hollywood. Produced by Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence and executive produced by Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist. malala yousafzai, She herself was once a victim of Taliban shootings..

Mr Lawrence told the BBC that he had been watching the news afterwards. US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, And it was the scene unfolding for women that spurred her to take action, back in 2021. “I just wanted to do something,” she says. “And the camera makes you feel less helpless.”

Lawrence said she wanted to know if anyone from within the country was filming what was happening to women and girls in Afghanistan. “It was important for us to look inside Kabul because that’s exactly what the Taliban didn’t want,” she says. “So, as we were already well aware of her activities, we contacted Sahara and found out that she was already collecting footage of girls on the ground in Kabul.”

The women in the film were taught how to use a camera and, if possible, how to avoid getting caught. “I spent time on the Afghan border to be close to the team and collect material,” Mani told the BBC. “We created a team to train our protagonists on how to film themselves and how to do so in a safe manner, so that even if their cellphones were inspected by the Taliban, they would be safe. You will not be found out.”

Lawrence is not the first Hollywood celebrity to denounce human rights violations against Afghan women. In September, Meryl Streep said at a United Nations General Assembly event: Cats in Afghanistan had more rights than womenBecause cats may go outside and “feel the sun on their faces.”

But Lawrence’s activism follows other high-profile women who have been named in documentaries highlighting the recent experiences of Afghan women. Hillary and Chelsea Clinton were two of the producers of the 2022 film. in her handsabout the youngest female mayor in Afghanistan’s history and the turmoil she experienced in the months leading up to the Taliban takeover.

The Clintons and Lawrence are also currently executive producing a documentary on women’s rights closer to home, Zulawski v. Texas (2024). This documentary is about women who are denied abortions despite life-threatening circumstances. sued the state of Texas. As some women in America say their rights to their bodies are being erodedsome support stricter, more restrictive abortion policies, but is Lawrence using filmmaking for what she considers a good cause?

“I think filmmaking is my way of dealing with life,” she replies. “This is my artistic process, and I have a similar process myself. And in many ways, when I watch something unfold and feel helpless anger, it’s It’s my only weapon. Zulawski v. Texas was very timely because abortion was a hot topic.” [US election] Ballot paper.

“Women are dying because Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the conversation around abortion in America is really difficult,” Lawrence says. It was very important for me to express my opinion on it because Americans are so isolated from even thinking about abortion.

“Bread & Roses was born out of just a need. Just seeing something happen in the moment and just needing to do something.”

Malala believes that the very act of filming was Afghan women’s way of coping with severe restrictions on their lives.

“Make their voices loud and clear and make their presence visible against the Taliban at a time when Afghan women are using all of their power to silence them. That’s a very powerful form of resistance,” she told the BBC. “Essentially, what they are imposing is systematic oppression, literally controlling everything in a woman’s life.”

Malala said that since this documentary was made, Afghan women have face more challenges. Recent edicts by the Taliban Prohibiting women’s voices from being heard in public placesthe Taliban say this is based on their interpretation of Sharia law. I can’t hear anyone singing or reading books inside the house. A Taliban spokesperson told the BBC at the time that the edict was compliant with Islamic Sharia law and that “any religious scholar can confirm its references.” They said they were also “addressing” the issue of women’s education.

However, psychologists working with Afghan women say that told the BBC This year, they were suffering from a “pandemic” of suicidal thoughts. “If you’re going to shut down universities and schools, you better kill me now,” one of the women at the Bread and Roses shouted after officials told her to “keep quiet and we’ll kill you right now.” .

“You have brought us fear, not safety,” another woman shouts at them in the documentary.

Dr. Mohammadi opines in the film that “Afghan women are oppressed first at home by their fathers, brothers, and husbands,” but the salient feature of Bread & Roses is that these women The number of men and boys who support their lives, usually by showing their faces. It has been blurred for safety. As the camera focuses on a nighttime shot of the city of Kabul, a woman’s voice echoes, “Education is our right!” After a while, a male voice could be heard clearly and joined in.

Malala told the BBC she believed public pressure could eventually force the Taliban to make concessions. “They don’t even want women to participate in the discussions that are taking place with national representatives. They don’t want women’s rights to be on the agenda,” she says.

“To resist them, we have to do everything they don’t want us to do. Women have to be in the room. Women’s rights have to be on the table. Well, we must call out gender apartheid and codify it into a treaty so that perpetrators like the Taliban can be held accountable for the crimes they commit against Afghan women. ”

Such demands may feel far away. BBC reported this year Protests led by women have stalled due to retaliation, but some have posted videos online of themselves covering their faces. Sahra Mani said that while making the film, “safety was paramount” and that the main characters left Afghanistan before the film was released and their faces were shown.

In the film’s moving epilogue, cell phone footage shows an elderly woman secretly teaching English to a group of young women. “This will help you with your university entrance exams,” the woman says, as if nothing has changed.

The message of “Bread & Roses” is summed up in the words of an activist who must take one last look at his homeland and flee.

“History must remember that once such atrocities against Afghan women were tolerated,” she says after crossing the border into Pakistan.

“Bread & Roses” will be released on Apple TV+ starting November 22