Bread

BREAD takes us across the tracks and into the world of Israel's majority population of working class Sephardim (Jews from Middle Eastern and Mediterranean countries). The film is a brilliant portrait of one North African Jewish family living in a remote town in southern Israel. After 20 years of hard work at the local bakery, Shlomo is fired. His reversal of fortune sets off a series of conflicts in the family. Will his wife's entering the work force destroy their marriage? Should his daughter remain with her family in this claustrophobic atmosphere, or move to cosmopolitan Tel Aviv? Will his son risk his estrangement from Shlomo for a life of petty crime? Above all, the film studies Shlomo in his moment of truth. BREAD is a realistic film, saturated with emotion. Superb acting by Rami Danon (BEYOND THE WALLS, THE SMILE OF THE LAMB) and an outstanding screenplay. Winner of the esteemed international Prix Italia for television fiction in 1986.

Ram Loevy was born in Israel in 1940 and ranks amongst Israel’s leading documentary filmmakers. His film work includes around 25 feature dramas, 25 long documentaries and numerous reports for Israel TV, PBC and Channel 4. He has won the prestigious Israel Prize in 1993, recognizing his life-long achievements. His documentary work includes the drama series Mr. Mani, based on a novel by A. B. Yehoshua and which tells the story of Jewish-Sepharadic family in Jerusalem over a time period of 150 years. Indian in the Sun, a film that tell a story about a power struggle between a captive soldier of Indian origin and an Ashkenazi soldier who takes him to prison, has won the Israel David Harp Award and the Israel Broadcasting Award. His many other contributions include Bread, a story of a laid-off bakery worker and his family and Time Out about a group encounter between Arab and Jewish High School students. In 1992, a retrospective of his films was featured at the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa cinemateques.