I, Hummus
Fall Grants 2017 - Development Stage
Rawane Nassif / Feature Experimental or Essay / Lebanon, Canada, Qatar / 2019 / 70 min / Original Language: Arabic, English / Interests: Immigration, Identity, Creative Documentary
Synopsis
When I landed in Canada in 2006, I became recognized as a giant walking plate of hummus. Being from Lebanon, my identity was intrinsically linked to hummus, and I started to get accustomed to it and represent it to the best of my ability, until one day I was told that hummus is from Israel. This is when I realized how much food matters and how personal and political it can be. A dip into hummus is an invitation into the complexity of the Middle East, the journey of immigration, the problems with cultural appropriation, the economy of the hummus industry, and the rise of food subcultures.
Credits
- Director
- Rawane Nassif
- Screenwriter
- Rawane Nassif
- Producer
- Niam Itani, Lara Abu Saifan, Rawane Nassif
About the Director
Born in Beirut in 1983, Rawane Nassif is a Lebanese/Canadian filmmaker and anthropologist. She has a BFA in Filmmaking from the Université Saint Joseph in Lebanon and an MA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Alberta in Canada. Her work addresses space, identity, displacement and memory and spans different formats such as films, children's books, oral history projects and publications.