Monday 13 September 2021
10am, 6.30pm
Directed by Beth Elise Hawk
Documentary
English & Hebrew (with subtitles)
86 mins
This delicious documentary follows a group of chefs who take part in a unique food festival in the Israeli city of Haifa. The story has its origins in MasterChef and is about the A-Sham Arabic Food Festival, a fusion of Arab and Israeli culinary traditions set up by Dr Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, the first Arab to win Israel’s MasterChef. She organised the festival around a simple but ingenious principle: pairing Israeli chefs with their Arab counterparts and taking them to the coastal city of Haifa, to show what they can do together.
The result is a gourmet guide to the disparate historical shifts that have gone into the making of the country’s multi-faceted population – freshly chopped Israeli/Arab salad, exquisite mussakhan (Palestinian roast chicken) and kreplach (Jewish dumplings) made to perfection.
Breaking Bread demonstrates that food can nurture a connection among people from disparate groups, chipping away at discord, and that when political and religious labels are removed, we are all just human beings with striking similarities. – The Jerusalem Post
It’s the spirit of the film and the hopes of the people in it that are engaging, along with the tantalising idea of new flavours to experience. Like kishek yoghurt soup, and qatayef filled with cheese and nuts, and mussahkhan, the Palestinian chicken, and the octopus maqluba.
It has had an impressive range of nods from the international film community. It’s been invited to participate in official selection in 14 festivals and it has picked up a number of awards. – Jane Freebury, Canberra Times