Hummus: A Story of Appropriation - Film Review

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Palestinian-American filmmaker Lafi Abood travelled to Jerusalem to document moments in the lives of some ordinary Palestinians living there. Abu-Falah, an elderly blacksmith, is harrassed into abandoning his shop in the old city so that it can be demolished, and Samer is a young Palestinian whose life is disrupted when he is repeatedly arrested and released.

I was expecting there to be a bit more hummus in this movie. The filmmaker uses it as a metaphor for the fate of people like Samer and Abu-Falah. He says that growing up "hummus was not special. It was just hummus", a ubiquitous and cheap food. Now that hummus is seen as the unofficial national dish of Israel, many people he interviewed were upset at what they see as an appropriation of Arab culture.

With just 51 minutes of run time, the film necessarily only presents a brief snapshot of the situation of Palestinians in Jerusalem, and I wish we could have heard from some of the women living there as well. It is an interesting and engaging film, which I would recommend for fellow Australians curious about what life is like for Palestinians in the region.

[LINK=https://palestinianfilmfestival.com.au/session/hummus-a-story-of-appropriation/]
Hummus: A Story of Appropriation[/LINK] will be screening in Sydney on Wednesday, November 9th, as part of the Palestinian Film Festival

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