Malala Yousafzai was just 12 years old when she agreed to be the subject of a 30-minute documentary. The film, “Class Dismissed: Malala’s Story,” described her activism in her native Pakistan, where the Taliban were banning young women from pursuing an education.
Produced by The New York Times, the film changed Yousafzai’s life. She wrote an international bestseller; at 17, she became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
She also survived an assassination attempt. She knew there was a risk in agreeing to tell her story: “But there was a risk attached to being silent as well.”
The Taliban’s recent suppression of women in neighboring Afghanistan is the subject of “Bread & Roses,” a new feature-length documentary directed by Sahra Mani, a native Afghani; Yousafzai is executive producer. The film, which begins streaming on AppleTV+ Friday, serves as an introduction to the recent partnership between Yousafzai’s production company, Extracurricular, and the subscription channel.
“For the past three and a half years since they took control [in Kabul], the Taliban has been systematically erasing women from public life and work,” Yousafzai said in a joint video interview, seated on a sofa alongside Mani. “They are punishing women and girls for simply wanting their human rights.”
For the filmmakers — whose team includes the actor Jennifer Lawrence, who produced — “Bread & Roses” is “an act of resistance” against the Taliban, Yousafzai said.
“The Taliban want women in Afghanistan to be silenced, and we, through making this documentary, want to make their voices louder and louder.”
The film follows the plights of three protesters in particular: Zahra, a dentist who helps organize demonstrations; Taranom, who is living in exile in a safe house; and Sharifa, who joins the movement despite her parents’ objections.
Mani, whose previous work includes “A Thousand Girls Like Me” (2018), earned her master’s degree in documentary filmmaking at the University of Arts London. She has been a visiting filmmaker at Vermont College of Fine Arts and previously taught at Kabul University.
She resolved to make her latest film after the activists began sending her videos taken on their mobile phones, hoping to document their activism.
“The tools of cinema and storytelling always help humans have compassion for each other, and to understand each other’s situations,” Mani said. “I’m very privileged to have my camera, to step forward and tell the story of the women of my country. I feel very close to them. Their story is my story, too.”
During their demonstrations on the streets of Kabul, the women chant slogans: “Work, bread, education!” At one point, Zahra writes in Farsi in a snowbank: “Bread, work, freedom.”
Mani said she chose the title of her film before she knew about its adoption as a rallying cry during the historic textile strike by female factory workers in Lawrence, Mass., in 1912.
“I didn’t know about the politics or the history in the US,” she said. “It was important for me to start with something the Afghan women were chanting in the Kabul streets.”
While editing “Bread & Roses,” Mani found herself rewatching “Schindler’s List,” Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Oscar winner about one German businessman’s heroism during the Holocaust.
“I was facing this deep human story of loss, but also resilience and hope,” she said. “And I was really inspired — how people could cope with this situation.”
Jennifer Lawrence, star of “The Hunger Games,” “Mother!,” and “Don’t Look Up,” formed her own production company, Excellent Cadaver, in 2018.
“All three of us were in our own separate spaces,” recalled Yousafzai. “We never imagined this would bring us all together, but I think this was the right team.
“When it comes to support for women, no matter what part of the world they are in, I think it should not be treated as somebody else’s problem,” she said. “For Jennifer, just because she is not from the culture doesn’t mean ‘I can look away.’ Any of us could be in that situation. It is a very strong, powerful message of sisterhood.”
In the film, Zahra hosts planning meetings for demonstrators in her office. A sign on the wall displays her dentistry’s catch phrase: “Your Smile Designer.”
Walking outside the walls of her safe house in a remote location, Taranom captures a panorama with her phone. The landscape is barren.
“There are more snakes and jackals than you can imagine,” she says.
The film is an act of witnessing, said Yousafzai.
“The Taliban do not want us to see what they are doing to women,” she said. “They do not want you to talk about it. These three Afghan women have risked their lives on behalf of 20 million Afghan women and girls so that we can start thinking about them.”
Both Yousafzai and Mani hope that their film will help urge the international community to codify “gender apartheid” in the United Nations’ proposed Crimes Against Humanity treaty.
“Women’s rights and girls’ education have to be a non-negotiable condition,” Yousafzai said.
Mani believes that legitimacy in the eyes of the world “really matters” to the Taliban.
“They really want to be invited to the big conferences. They want to be at the COP summit. They want to be given a seat at the UN.
“I think we should not give them legitimacy,” she said. “We should not normalize them, because they are denying half of the population their human rights, and we cannot look away. We cannot look away.”
James Sullivan can be reached at jamesgsullivan@gmail.com.