8 minutes
Serene Husni
2020

Screens with:Rumaan, Something from there, The Beautiful Room is Empty

When he was 13, Hammoudeh was presented with a crucial test of character. Instead of being punished for skipping school, he was entrusted with managing the family allowance for two weeks. To feed his three siblings, he resorted to something he always knew: in a Palestinian house, the pantry is never bare. Borrowing from classic elements of Palestinian storytelling—namely repetition, trickery, and an obsession with food—Brown Bread & Apricots is a story about a family in exile and an unruly teenage boy.

Co-presented by LIFT and Trinity Square Video

SERENE HUSNI

Serene Husni is a writer, translator & filmmaker. She holds an MFA in Documentary Media from Ryerson University with distinction. Her directorial debut, Zinco, won the audience award for "Best Documentary" from the Franco-Arab Film Festival. Freely available to watch online, the film chronicles the urban history of Palestinian refugee homes in Al Talbieh camp in Jordan. Serene is a founding member of Dalaala, an Arabic-English translation collective, and Aramram, an Arabic-speaking web television based in Amman. She recently joined the team of writers at Mahdoom, a podcast about the stories behind Arabic dishes.