Jennifer Lawrence on the documentary “Bread & Roses”: This is how the film about Afghan women was made

With the documentary “Bread & Roses”, Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence (34) and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai (27) want to create a contemporary testimony to Afghan women who live under the rule of the Taliban. For the film, which will be available on Apple TV+ from November 24th, they equipped three young Afghan women with cell phones so that they could keep video diaries. In an interview with “Welt am Sonntag”, the two producers spoke to director Sahra Mani about what motivated them to take on the difficult but important project.

“As I watched the news of the fall of Kabul in August 2021, I was overcome with a mixture of sadness and anger. I was very concerned about the fate of women in Afghanistan, a country that had been abandoned,” says Lawrence. “I felt strongly that the world needed to witness right now what was happening to the women there, behind the closed doors that were slamming across the country.”

She and her production company team immediately started looking for Afghan female directors who could deliver pictures from the country – and came across the film “A Thousand Girls Like Me” (2019) by Sahra Mani, which she then brought on board for her project.

“Our impulse was to enable exactly what the Taliban did not want under any circumstances – namely that women film the situation on site,” says Lawrence, describing the idea. “For these women, resistance is the only option; it is their form of hope. I feel the same way as they do,” adds Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani, who has been living in exile since 2021.

The topic is also close to the heart of activist Malala Yousafzai, who experienced the Taliban’s violence first hand when she was shot in the head and neck by two fighters in 2012: “We would like to give viewers an insight into what is happening in Afghanistan, On the other hand, we also show that these women are resisting,” says the 27-year-old. “And when they do that, they put their lives at risk because they’re fighting for their dignity, because they want their rights and their freedom back. And that’s the main message of this film.”

The film is also intended to be an appeal to Western governments. For Jennifer Lawrence, it’s important not to look away: “We’ve learned that the more we close our eyes to it, the more powerful evil becomes,” she says. “And we see that the more the West legitimizes the Taliban, the more dangerous they become. We are strengthening an enemy.”

Yousafzai’s hope is “that we can urge heads of state not to normalize relations with the Taliban.” “And that in the future we will ensure that women’s rights and the education of girls are a top priority, that they must be a non-negotiable condition in all discussions with the Taliban.”