In Bread and Roses, the documentary executive-produced by Malala Yousafzai, an Afghan woman named Taranom finally makes the painful decision to flee her birthplace for Pakistan. “May history remember that, once upon a time, such cruelty was permitted against the women of Afghanistan,” she says in a moment that is particularly haunting. “Before the United Nations. Before human rights organizations. Before the whole world.”
The documentary—also produced by actor Jennifer Lawrence and directed by Sahra Mani—was created thanks, in part, to the cellphone footage from three Afghan women in Kabul speaking out against the Taliban’s inhumane laws. In addition to Taranom, the film follows Sharifa, an ex–government employee who is forced to live out her life indoors, and Zahra, a woman who organizes activists in her dentistry practice.
