In Between

Three women share a flat in Tel Aviv. All three are Palestinian. Laila is a lawyer; she goes out at night, drinks and answers to nobody. Salma works in a bar and makes music; her family is Christian and does not know who their daughter is with. Nour arrives as the third; she wears a headscarf, is devout and studies at university. She is engaged and the man does not want her to study. The three do not judge one another but their orders collide. Each has her own family and her own pressure outside; all of them speak another language when they go home. Maysaloun Hamoud writes and directs; it is her first feature. Mouna Hawa, Sana Jammalieh and Shaden Kanboura are in the cast. It is an Israeli and French co-production. The film won prizes at festivals and opened a wide argument. After its release a municipal authority banned it and a religious ruling was reported to have been issued against the director; Hamoud lived under protection for a period. The matter it treats is being caught two ways; the women are a minority in Israeli society and under pressure inside their own communities. The narrative puts none of the three in the right or in the wrong; each makes her own decision. Its hardest section is Nour's strand and the narrative softens nothing there. Music and night life work inside the narrative. Its limit is structure; the three strands do not carry equal weight and some sections stay short. Who it is for: viewers who like cinema from the Middle East and narratives about women. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy, one scene hard to bear, and the ending left open.