Children of Abraham/Ibrahim: IN BETWEEN, screening Wednesday at AFS Cinema
Written by Associate Professor Karen Grumberg, of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at UT.
The three Israeli Palestinian women in Maysaloun Hamoud’s debut film, IN BETWEEN, are, first and foremost, women. The fact that Hamoud is Israeli Palestinian herself may lead viewers to expect her film to focus on the political dimension of their existence; while the political is never far from the everyday lives of Israeli Palestinians, though, it recedes to the background in IN BETWEEN, allowing for the women’s stories to emerge in all their intimacy and universality.
Laila (Mouna Hawa), who hails from Haifa, is a beautiful, unconventional, chain-smoking lawyer; she shares an apartment with Salma (Sana Jammelieh), a DJ who disdains her Christian parents’ constant attempts to marry her off. Their life of non-stop nightclubs and casual drug use is suddenly disrupted by the arrival of a third flatmate, Nur (Shaden Kanboura), an observant Muslim from Umm al-Fahm. Though Nur is initially put off by her new roommates’ unapologetically secular lifestyle – and they by her conservatism – all three gradually realize that their similarities are greater than their differences. The film highlights concrete signifiers of the women’s differences: it lingers on Laila’s crisp white button-down shirts as she dresses for work, on Selma’s defiantly shapeless dress as she prepares for yet another meeting with a potential suitor, on Nur’s careful wrapping of her headscarf. As soon as it acknowledges these differences, though, it works to expose them as superficial.
What binds them together is how they experience relationships as women who don’t fit into the roles that their families, societies, or partners wish them to occupy. The experience of feminist autonomy granted by life in a hedonistic Tel Aviv clashes with the discrimination these women experience as Palestinians; though not dominant in the film, it hovers always just beneath the surface. Meanwhile, the expectations of a patriarchal society constrict these characters and force them to make difficult and painful choices. And they make them, courageously.
Since its 2016 premiere, the film has received numerous accolades, in Israel and abroad, most notably in the form of the Cannes Women in Motion Young Talents Award. Hamoud has also, perhaps inevitably, been criticized for accepting Israeli funding for the film, a choice she has eloquently defended. The most ironic reaction of all was expressed by the municipality of the conservative Umm Al-Fahm, which called for a boycott of the film for its irreverence and requested that the Ministry of Culture ban its screening. This outrage, and the death threats Hamoud has received since, are perhaps the greatest confirmation of the urgency and relevance of IN BETWEEN.
For the 12th year running the Austin Film Society, the UT Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the Initiative for Communication on Media and the Middle East (ICOMME) present Children of Abraham/Ibrahim, a selection of recent films that shine a light on the diverse people and perspectives of the Middle East. The series kicks off with IN BETWEEN, which plays at AFS Cinema on September 5th. Get tickets here.
