(L-R) Pakistani education activist and producer Malala Yousafzai, US actress Jennifer Lawrence, producer Justine Ciarrocchi, and director Sahra Mani attend the Los Angeles premiere of 'Bread and Roses' at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on November 14, 2024. — AFP

A unique inside look at the Taliban's impact on Afghan women is set to be released next week with the smartphone-filmed documentary 'Bread & Roses.' Produced by actress Jennifer Lawrence ('The Hunger Games') and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, this feature-length film delves into the daily hardships faced by half of Afghanistan's population since the withdrawal of US troops allowed Taliban leaders to take control.

'When Kabul fell in 2021, all women lost their basic rights. They lost their rights to education, to work,' Lawrence told AFP in Los Angeles.

'Some were doctors with high degrees, and their lives changed completely overnight.' The documentary, which premiered at Cannes in May 2023, was directed by exiled Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani, who trained a dozen women on how to film themselves with their phones—resulting in a poignant portrayal of the intertwined lives of three Afghan women.

We meet Zahra, a dentist whose practice is threatened with closure, who becomes a leader in protests against the Taliban government. Sharifa, a former civil servant, loses her job and is confined to her home, reduced to hanging laundry on her roof for fresh air. Taranom, an activist in exile in neighboring Pakistan, watches helplessly as her homeland transforms.

'The restrictions are becoming stricter and stricter,' Mani told AFP on the film's Los Angeles red carpet. 'And hardly anyone outside the country seems to care. The women of Afghanistan didn't receive the support they deserved from the international community.'

Since their return to power, Taliban officials have implemented a 'gender apartheid' in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations. Women are being systematically removed from public spaces: Taliban authorities have banned post-secondary education for girls and women, restricted employment, and blocked access to parks and other public areas. A recent law even prohibits women from singing or reciting poetry in public.

'The Taliban claim to represent culture and religion, but they are a small group of men who do not represent the diversity of the country,' Yousafzai, an executive producer of the film, told AFP. 'Islam does not prohibit a girl from learning, Islam does not prohibit a woman from working,' said the Pakistani activist, who was targeted for assassination by the Pakistani Taliban at the age of 15.

The documentary captures the first year after the fall of Kabul, including moments of bravery when women speak out. 'You closed universities and schools, you might as well kill me!' a protester shouts at a man threatening her during a demonstration. These gatherings of women—under the slogan 'Work, bread, education!'—are systematically crushed by Taliban authorities. Protesters are beaten, some are arrested, others kidnapped. Slowly, the resistance fades, but it doesn't die: some Afghan women are now trying to educate themselves through clandestine courses.

Three years after the Taliban fighters seized power from a corrupt civilian administration, no countries have officially recognized their new government. In the wake of Donald Trump's re-election to the US presidency, Taliban leaders have indicated they hope to 'open a new chapter' in relations between Kabul and Washington, where a more transactional foreign policy outlook is expected to prevail. For Mani, this raises concerns. Abandoning the defense of Afghan women's rights would be a grave error—one the West could come to regret, she said. The less educated Afghan women are, the more vulnerable their sons are to the ideology that spawned the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.

'If we are paying the price today, you might pay the price tomorrow,' she said. 'Bread & Roses' begins streaming on Apple TV+ on November 22.

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