About
This acclaimed drama chronicles romance, hospitalisation and rebirth, as it follows formative decades in the life of trade unionist, politician and feminist Sonja Davies. Although director Gaylene Preston and co-writer Graeme Tetley's three-hour production was made for television, it won a limited cinema release on both sides of the Tasman. Australian Geneviève Picot (as Davies) and Mick Rose (as her husband) won acting gongs at the 1994 NZ Film and TV Awards. This excerpt features Sonja discovering the power of protest in the 1950s. Bread and Roses marked 100 years of women's suffrage in Aotearoa. Read more about it here.
Key Cast & Crew
GP
Geneviève Picot
As: Sonja
SD
Sonja Davies
Original Author
Related images
A scene from Bread & Roses. Sonja Davies (Geneviève Picot) hugs her friend Les (Kathryn Rawlings), while protesting against plans in 1955 to remove the Nelson railway line. Lyn (Mandy McMullin) sits on the left of frame in a red coat.
Photo appears courtesy of the NZ Film Commission.
Charlie (Mick Rose) and Sonja (Geneviève Picot) listen to a speech by Stan Whitehead, protesting about plans to remove the Nelson railway line, in Bread and Roses(1993).
Photo appears courtesy of the NZ Film Commission
A scene from Bread & Roses. Con (Tina Regtien) and Sonja Davies (Geneviève Picot) get on with the job in Ōtaki, while watched on by one of the elderly patients (Jim McFarlane).
Photo appears courtesy of the NZ Film Commission
Sonja (Geneviève Picot) and American marine corporal Red (Erik Thomson) steal a moment together in Bread & Roses.
Photo appears courtesy of the NZ Film Commission
Four of the women behind Bread & Roses (1993): from left to right, writer/director Gaylene Preston, executive producer Dorothee Pinfold and producer Robin Laing. Seated is Sonja Davies, whose life was dramatised for the series.
Photograph by Guy Robinson
Camera operator Leon Narbey and writer/director Gaylene Preston on the set of Bread and Roses (1993).
Kindly provided by The Dominion Post
From left to right: Les Bartlett (Kathryn Rawlings), Sonja Davies (Geneviève Picot) and Ruth Page (Janet Fisher) await the verdict, after protesting against closing the Nelson railway line: a scene from the final instalment of Bread & Roses.
Photo appears courtesy of the NZ Film Commission
