The documentary features footage from Sharifa, an ex-government employee forced indoors, Zahra, a woman organizing activists in her dentistry practice, and Taranom, who seeks refuge in Pakistan.
As American occupation ended and the Taliban gained further control, women lost the rights to education past sixth grade, work, and walking unaccompanied in public.
[4] Women protest the closing of schools, chanting for "work, bread and education",[3] and water cannons and tear gas are used against them.
[8] The director and producer Sahra Mani was hired after Lawrence and Ciarrocchi watched her documentary about an Afghan woman who was sexually abused, A Thousand Girls Like Me (2019).
[12] Yousafzai believed western citizens must "hold their leaders to account" on what their government was doing to protect women's rights in Afghanistan.
Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Variety's Catherine Bray praised it as a "necessary howl of rage", saying that it was "urgent and timely" and that its "scrappy, up-close and personal" style benefits from the lack of narrator or viewer stand-in role.
[7] Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter described the documentary as "an unparalleled look at Kabul" and "a blueprint for Afghanistan's next generation in their fight for self-determination".
Gyarkye contrasted it with In Her Hands, a documentary about the young politician Zarifa Ghafari with a "thriller-esque narrative", in comparison to which Bread and Roses has "a more honest register".