It’s been a little over three years since the Taliban reclaimed power in Afghanistan. Since then, women have had to wear a head-to-toe veil at all times in public, be escorted by a man when going out, abstain from looking at a man not related to them, and stay out of schools and colleges. They’re even forbidden from singing, laughing, and speaking loudly in public. Bread & Roses (Apple TV+) is a new documentary about three women trying to fight Taliban oppression.
Director Sahra Mani says she left the country at 4:00 a.m. a few days before Kabul collapsed, not remembering if she closed her bedroom windows.
“But the tragedy is much bigger than me and my apartment, and if I do lock the door or not. The real tragedy happened when Taliban control the country, and they start imposing restriction on women education, women empowerment. And later on, we saw they arrested women, they kidnapping, they killing. And we lost everything over the night,” she recalls.
Before the takeover, women held government and university jobs, owned businesses, and generally lived like their U.S. counterparts. Mani confirms that now they live in medieval times or worse.
Mani explains that when she was working with charities, women sent her videos about their daily lives and efforts to push back against the Taliban. Plus, other women already knew about her work.
“They knew me, about the filmmaker who touched sensitive issues and taboo. Maybe that's why they trusted me, and they start sending me video. Later on, I found out … they are asking me for something more than simply documenting this video, and that's why all this material become a deep human story.”
In the documentary, one scene shows women marching through Kabul’s streets and chanting, “Work, bread, education. … Down with poverty and misery.” Men with guns appear and start attacking the women, as well as journalists covering the protest.
Mani says the Taliban arrested many women demonstrators, and forced them to give false confessions and sign papers promising to not attend future protests, otherwise their entire families would be punished.
“But they didn't stop. They went back home, and they changed the tactic, and still they're fighting back with the Taliban,” she points out. “But unfortunately, they didn't get heard by international community.”
Mani’s documentary centers on Zahra Mohammadi, a dentist who’s about to get married; Sharifa Movahidzadeh, who loses her government job and stays confined to her home, doing chores; and Taranom Seyedi, who flees Afghanistan for Pakistan, where she still lives a difficult and penniless life, while awaiting a visa to move.
The three women are from different social classes, Mani explains, and Mohammadi is an example for young girls, since she obtained an education, and with that came freedom, a professional career, and income.
“But it's not only about women,” Mani points out. “Artists are not allowed to do any work. Artistic expression, like filmmaking, is considered as a crime. Musician are not playing any instrument. It's just destroying a nation without any educational element. Because education is not about just going to school, right? It's about reading book, listening to music, going to cinema, watching film. They are all element that society get educated through this.”
When the Taliban keeps women uneducated, their sons are more likely to become fighters for the Taliban, Mani confirms. “They are radicalizing young men to get soldiers for future Taliban. It means that they are growing up so fast. … And they keep women uneducated because they knew that education make women empower.”
She adds, “Head of Taliban, they send their own daughter abroad to get education. But they close down school to Afghan girls. Why? Because they know education is power.”
Zahra Mohammadi appears in "Bread & Roses. Credit: Apple TV+.
Mohammadi, Movahidzadeh, and Seyedi ultimately escaped Afghanistan through a charity that was evacuating women — but now that work has stopped, Mani says. “Germany stopped accepting more refugee from Afghanistan. And the rest of the world, they are stop accepting women from Afghanistan. And they are in the risk inside the country, and there is no way to get take them out of Afghanistan. So we don't know what to do.”
Mani says her film is emotional — it’s about loss, resilience, and hope. “I think it's good to see how other people fighting for the very basic things that you [take for] granted easily. You're born with so many right in your country. But we never born with the right to get education as a woman. … We were always had this Taliban since I was young. … That's what made me amazed about these women — were the amount of hope they put in their community and to each other, and they keep supporting each other. … Even now, they're keep fighting. But what they would need is solidarity.”
Taranom Seyedi appears in "Bread & Roses. Credit: Apple TV+.