Jennifer Lawrence’s documentary Bread and Roses premieres at Cannes
The Afghan Bread and Roses documentary, about the daily lives of three women under the Taliban’s rule, directed by Sahra Mani and produced by Jennifer Lawrence, premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in a special screening on Sunday.
The documentary was produced by Excellent Cadaver, a production firm that the Oscar-winning actress founded with her friend, Justine Ciarrocchi, in 2018.
“My heart was beating so fast watching these women defy the Taliban; they currently have no autonomy within their country. It is so important for them to be given the opportunity to document their own story, in their own way,” said Lawrence.
Lawrence and Ciarrocchi wanted to give an Afghan filmmaker a platform to tell the story in a meaningful way, so they tracked down Mani, who had previously worked on the critically acclaimed 2019 documentary, A Thousand Girls Like Me.
Mani wanted to show the reality of how drastically life has changed under Taliban rule for women, even with filming being difficult, as she used covert cameras and asked the women to film themselves at safehouses.
With Mani and the other women featured in the documentary all out of Afghanistan, the producers felt comfortable submitting Bread and Roses for wider distribution, starting at Cannes.
