Sunday, October 29, 2023 at 3:00 pm.
This film will be shown in the same program as Coming Home and Liwan
Online only
Director/narrator: Lafi Abood
Run time: 51 minutes
Language: English, open captioned
Style: documentary
Year: 2022
About The Film
Since the start of the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, the Israeli government has placed restrictions on the Palestinian population, which in turn has left them in an unprecedented time bubble. Using the cultural appropriation of the popular chickpea dip Hummus as a frame, the film chronicles the lives of some ordinary Palestinians in Jerusalem. Conditions in the city affect their lives such that they cannot mourn the past, live the present, or contemplate a future. Their very humanity is appropriated. In many ways, their lives parallel the fate of Hummus.
Featured are:
- Palestinian director/narrator Lafi Abood who says that he was exiled from his grandmother’s house in 1979 and “it took 35 years to come back to Jerusalem as prompted by an American-based NGO.”
- Samer Abud-Aisha, “a regular guy from Jerusalem… They know this is Palestine and this is our hummus. To compensate for their inferiority complex, they keep adding more flags, more propaganda, more partitioning, more repression, just to prove to themselves that this is their land and their hummus.”
- Abud Falah, who stands watch 24 x 7 in his small blacksmith shop in Jerusalem’s old city because the Israeli government threatens to evict him.
Trailer
Panelist
Panelist Lafi Abood
By video conference
Lafi Abood is a Palestinian filmmaker, born right outside of Jenin, who spent some of his childhood in Jerusalem. He said, “It is only natural for me to do something that sheds light on the suffering of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the injustice that all Palestinians suffer as a result of the occupation.”
With a career spanning more than 20 years, Lafi has been at the forefront of innovative, multi-disciplinary media productions, from social impact and awareness-raising documentaries to corporate videos and photo exhibitions. Currently Managing Partner at Analog Production, Lafi travels widely to execute various creative projects as part of his steadfast commitment to bring untold stories to life from different corners of the world.
Lafi’s work has seen him produce stunning visuals, from the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula to the bitter cold of the Antarctic, and from tropical rain forests to concrete jungles. Placing human dignity at the core of his work, Lafi’s projects revolve around social issues. Some of his featured projects include photo exhibitions and films.