Phone documentary details Afghan women’s struggle under Taliban govt

LOS ANGELES, United States: A rare inside account of the Taliban authorities´ impact on Afghan women hits screens 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 immerses the viewer in the daily struggles endured by half the population of Afghanistan since the withdrawal of US troops paved the way for Taliban leaders to seize power.

“When Kabul fell in 2021 all women lost their very basic rights. They lost their rights to be educated, to work,” Lawrence told AFP in Los Angeles. “Some of them were doctors and had high degrees, and then their lives were completely changed overnight.”

The documentary, which debuted at Cannes in May 2023, was directed by exiled Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani, who reached out to a dozen women after the fall of Kabul. She tutored them on how to film themselves with their phones -- resulting in a moving depiction of the intertwined stories of three Afghan women.

We meet Zahra, a dentist whose practice is threatened with closure, suddenly propelled to the head of protests against the Taliban government. Sharifa, a former civil servant, is stripped of her job and cloistered at home, reduced to hanging laundry on her roof to get a breath of fresh air.

And Taranom, an activist in exile in neighboring Pakistan, who watches helplessly as her homeland changes. “The restrictions are getting tighter and tighter right now,” Mani told AFP on the film´s Los Angeles red carpet.

And hardly anyone outside the country seems to care, she said. “The women of Afghanistan didn´t receive the support they deserved from the international community.” Since their return to power, Taliban officials have established a “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.

Women are gradually being erased 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.