Her voice, her story

AWARD-WINNING Afghan director Sahra Mani documents the reality of her country’s women in Bread and Roses, coming to Apple TV+ on June 21, following its Cannes Film Festival debut last year.

The documentary film is expected to showcase the hardships and danger women have been facing in Afghanistan since the 2021 Taliban offensive, in which the Taliban victory ended the country’s 20-year war, resulting in the cruel and brutal domestication of women, in which they lost the right to independence and education.

The film follows the stories of three women and their struggles, as well as the punishment that is met with their attempts to protest the cruel circumstances. Sharifa Movahidzadeh and Zahra Mohammadi are both former working women that are forced to remain indoors, after losing their right to work. Zahra, who is a dentist, gets arrested and brutally tortured for gathering activists from her field, while Taranom Seyedi’s activism exiles her from her home country, turning her into a Pakistani refugee.

When asked about the film’s title, Sahra credited American writer James Oppenheim’s poem as reference, as well as a showcased chant by Afghan women as they protest the closing of schools. “In my film, you see Afghan women chanting ‘Bread, work, education and freedom!’. That’s what they want, they’re demanding their basic rights. The rose could be seen as a symbol of freedom and dignity,” she explained in an interview.

Sahra also reveals that her motivation for making the film comes from wanting to deliver Afghan women’s voices and stories, as they can no longer leave the house without their veils or unaccompanied. She also discusses the hardships of making the film, as safety of the crew and women involved had to be prioritised. “Danger was everywhere, and unfortunately, there were some arrests,” she said.

This is the filmmaker’s second project since the critically acclaimed 2018 documentary A Thousand Girls Like Me, which earned her a plenitude of awards, including the audience award at the 2019 Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival. The director also has a master’s degree in documentary filmmaking from the University of Arts London and is the founder of Afghanistan Doc House, a documentary film company.