The Barbeque People

Many awkward topics of conversation might spring up at your family’s Labor Day get-together, but a murder cover-up probably isn’t one of them. That’s not the case for the family in The Barbeque People. The 2003 drama, screening today as part of the Jewish Community Center’s Israeli Film Series, depicts a family of Jewish-Iraqi immigrants firing up the grill to celebrate the founding of their adopted homeland. Secret shames -- career failure, doubt about the future, infidelity and, at the extreme end, murder -- start to bubble up to the surface. You don’t have to be Jewish to thank Elohim they’re not your family.