A glimpse into the lives of women in Afghanistan

Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence and her producing partner Justine Ciarrocchi touched down at the Cannes Film Festival recently to promote their label’s first-ever documentary feature ‘Bread and Roses’, a harrowing and emotional look at the lives of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

After two decades of American occupation, the nation fell once again to the insurgent group, which moved quickly to strip women of basic rights: simple freedoms like the ability to work, appear in public without a male chaperone and receive an education, reported ‘Variety’.

“It all just collapsed in a matter of days,” Lawrence recalled to ‘Variety’.

She added, “I was watching this from America, where Roe v. Wade was about to be overturned. We felt helpless and frustrated with how to get these stories off of the news cycle and into people’s psyches. We want to help people be galvanised and care about the plight of these women.”

In the infancy of building their production company ‘Excellent Cadaver’, Lawrence and Ciarrocchi pursued Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani to help capture the stories of the suppressed women on the ground. The finished film, which was received with tears at its world premiere on the Croisette, is comprised largely of video filmed by its three subjects. Crews could not safely enter Afghanistan, nor could Mani, who had been abroad working when the Taliban took over the country.

“The director was given footage from women using their cell phones as there was one trusted camera person that was used occasionally,” Lawrence said.