Bitter Bread

Abbas Fahdel’s 2015 film Homeland: Iraq Year Zero is one of the great, essential documentaries of this decade. Described as a “choral saga,” it chronicles the daily life of Fahdel’s family in Baghdad, immediately before and after the 2003 US invasion. Fahdel records as his society’s stability evaporates, dramatically replaced by grief and confusion as the country (now without an operating government) plunges into chaos.

Bitter Bread turns a compassionate eye on the hardscrabble lives of people who have been violently uprooted from their homes, and still yearn for them. The refugee crisis is frequently depicted as a serious yet abstract issue, but Fahdel brings it into focus on an immediate, human level.
Bitter Bread screens October 1 and 3 at Film at Lincoln Center(165 W. 65th Street), as part of the 57th New York Film Festival.
Author, Small Press Publisher, Mosaic Artist, maybe a Poet, Blog Experimenter

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