Bread & Roses

While challenging, “Bread & Roses” is an edifying and ultimately inspiring clarion call for freedom and solidarity for all women.

Bread & Roses is a warning and one that is perhaps too late to heed. Perhaps the imperative -- and all we can do -- is to follow the example of these women by acting up rather than accepting the so-called “law and order” thrust upon us.

Recordings by the women, somewhat unevenly edited together, show the reality of conservative theological repression: no schooling for girls, no jobs for women, no public voice. The film plays as an act of resistance.

A powerful, incendiary film.

Powerful and enraging.

It spreads an existential chill.

WITH the Taliban not allowing many women to leave their homes in Afghanistan, this is an incredibly brave piece of film-making.

Balancing outrage with compassion, it digs beneath sociopolitical stalemates to spotlight the heroic efforts of these women while acknowledging their uphill battle, yielding a persuasive call to action.

Put together hastily from camera phone footage, Bread and Roses is a reminder that suffering still goes on after the headlines have left the news cycle.

Sahra Mani's powerful documentary about an even more challenging feminist struggle, featuring the brave activists in Kabul who attempted to stand in the way of an encroaching re-Tallibanification of their homeland.