Bread & Roses: an 'extraordinarily courageous' documentary

The actress Jennifer Lawrence and Nobel prizewinner Malala Yousafzai are among the producers of this "extraordinarily courageous documentary" about the lives of a trio of Afghan women in the period after the Taliban's return to power, said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday.

Shot in Kabul and stitched together by the Afghan director Sahra Mani, the film shows them standing up to the fundamentalists "who want to remove their right to education and work, and return them to a veiled, subservient existence" – and the price they pay for this. There's no narration, and the events depicted are sometimes hard to follow, but this is a film "as powerful as it is appalling".

Through mobile phone footage "captured on the fly", the documentary focuses on three women, said Natalia Winkelman in The New York Times: "Sharifa, a former government employee stuck at home because of restrictions to being out in public; Zahra, a dentist taken by the Taliban after protesting for her rights; and Taranom, an activist sheltering in a safe house in Pakistan." As these scenes unfold, "the film illustrates the effective options for women living under Taliban rule: house arrest, prison or exile".

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"It's humbling to see the resilience of those denied the most basic human rights," said Victoria Luxford in City AM. "Equally moving is their belief that somehow, someday, it will be better." Ultimately, the film serves as a reminder "that suffering still goes on after the headlines have left the news cycle".