The video project “4 Iftars Around the World” proposes an anthropological approach of Ramadan in the context of worldwide Pandemic
« With the Covid19 Pandemic keeping people apart, Ramadan and Iftars have been special this year. To keep on breaking barriers and stereotypes, bringing people together and with an insatiable curiosity for food rituals, we present this year the “Lockdown Version of the Ramadan Food Festival”. 4 Families accepted to open their door and show us their Iftar, with their local specialities and personal favourites. Discover the Project! »
“4 Iftars Around the World” is born in a peculiar context, the one of Covid-19, keeping people apart everywhere in the world and forcing normal people as well as journalists to use new methods of communication and getting together.
The first challenge of this project was formal: by asking people to film themselves their family, their cooking, their dinners we allow a different kind of representation, and more authenticity. Would it have been possible to get so much informality and intimacy by penetrating their home with a camera? Probably not. This way, the viewer is directly invited to travel and penetrate a home of people he never met before. Because the question of representation, and video representation is so problematic, I also took special care of NOT adding the typical Hollywood yellow filters that accentuate the Otherness, especially in regards to the Western World.
The second challenge was political. By choosing, once again, to document the cultural diversity of Muslim people, I wanted to further break the prejudices against Muslims, too often mixed up with Arabs only. It also allows to represent cultures that are not enough seen and known, and to put faces and real people on large concept. To finish gathering in the same videos 4 people from completely different locations that nevertheless share the same Food Ritual, allows - like the Covid19 - to break physical barriers to create a utopian globalized space where differences and common points can easily be compared.
Third challenge, was of course to further explore the Food Ritual of Iftar, the “Breakfast” or fast-breaking dinner, happening every evening at Sunset in the World, as well as the values that surround this month of Fasting. Is Iftar made of usual or special Food Items and which one? Are some Food Items shared between different Food Cultures? How are commensality and food sharing taking place, are there rules about who eat first or how to eat? What does the fasting change in the perception of eating? etc
4 Iftars Around the World - Indonesia
In our series "4 Iftars around the World", we first stop in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Eka Annash, 43 years old Punk-Rock Musician, generously opened the doors of his family house where he lived with his mother and wife, to presents typical Iftar dishes, among which Kolak and Chicken Soto. Kolak, which is a sweet soup, composed of bananas, yams or palm fruits, is used to replace the dates, traditionally recommended. Other numerous local sweets are to be found on street markets. Eka explained, than during the last years, Iftar taken outside, in restaurants or in food markets, sometimes with colleagues just after a workday were increasing and tend to replace the familial ones.
If this year, Covid-19 forbade the “mudik” or annual journey back to the familial village for the month of Ramadan, for Eka, far from cutting his family relationships, it actually brought him closer as he couldn’t go to work, allowing him to stay at his mother’s house the whole time instead of weekends only.
4 Iftars Around the World - Jordan
The second episode of "4 Iftars Around the World" brings us to Jordan, in a big family originating from Palestine.
On the Iftar table of teacher Reem Ibrahim AlSilawi, we can find lots of fresh juices such as Manga or Tamarind, as well as Mansaf, the national Jordanian dish made of Lamb, fermented yogurt and rice. This year, no Hummus or Shawarma, typical street food Items usually taken outside, but lots of sweets such as Jordanian sweet fried ball Taqtaq.
Despite the impossibility to gather the whole family, especially the one from Amman, their big family as well as the use of social networks, helped them to keep the spirit of those “Sweet and Beautiful Nights”, whose common denominators are long dinners, food sharing and prayers.
4 Iftars Around the World - Mayotte
Third Iftar of this Series is in Mayotte, French Island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, between Madagascar and Mozambique. Because if we forget it too easily, France does indeed have a predominantly Muslim region. Haloua talks about life on the island, family and the importance of bananas and cassavas.
Among the dishes she presents, we can find Pilau (or Pilaou), the national dish or the Comorian Archipelago, a dish made of fried rice mixed with meat and vegetables, and served this day with a roasted chicken, as well as boiled plantains and a juice of Hibiscus and Passion fruits. But for Haloua, it needs to be clear: if rice is used a lot, it only comes second after Bananas and Cassavas in the diet of the Island!
4 Iftars Around the World - Morocco
To finish our journey around the World of Iftars, from Asia to Indian Ocean via Middle-East, we finally arrived in Africa. Aicha and Fadwa share everything about living quarantining, Moroccan Harira and the life as an expat.
Aicha, a Moroccan usually living in Belgium, came in Morocco long before Ramadan with her Belgian husband. But with Covid19 and the closing of borders, they got stuck there for 2 more months. A blessing in disguise for Aicha who used to spend her Ramadan month alone in Belgium, missing on every opportunity to be with the family, share and gathering. Maybe not for her husband, who probably got some weight after such a month!
On the table, where everything is “homemade” we find the 3 typical Items of a Moroccan Iftar: the Harira, a soup based on tomatoes and cilantro and packed with proteins such as meat, chickpeas, or lentils, the ch’bakia, a honey and sesame seeds fried sweet, and to finish the Cellou or Sfouf, a highly caloric nutty paste made of sesame, almonds, peanuts and anis. We also find the usual eggs, bread and mint tea. The rest is open: homemade lebanese shawarmas brought by cultural globalization, small “moroccan” pizza, stuffed breads etc.
For them, the point of Iftar and Ramadan is to reinforce the family and the values of giving, gathered around a table, passing Food items around without really asking if the person is still hungry.
First published on Facebook, the videos gathered all together an amount of 337,604 views and reached more than 764,400 people.