Stockbridge Community Cinema Programme Notes 16 February 2018

In Between (15)

2017 1hr 43mins Director: Maysaloun Hamoud Starring Mouna Hawa, Sana Jammelieh,

Shaden Kanboura, Mahmud Shalaby, Henry Andrawes, Ashlam Canaan

The following (modified) interview by Alex Moreland with director Maysaloun Hamoud originally appeared on flickeringmyth.com on 25 Sept 2017

What was your starting point for In Between? The starting point is the time, by chance, I started to write when the Arab spring began around us. Even as Palestinian/Israel citizens, we cannot really connect to all the capitals in the Arab world, but in our souls, we were there together. So this spirit really influenced me, of course - the winds of change were the beginning of the writing and the movie.

What was the production process like? How did it kind of evolve from start to finish? It took five years to create this movie and I was actually connected to my producer since I was at cinema school and he was my teacher. He is a very famous filmmaker himself, his name is Shlomi Elkabetz and he made a trilogy with his sister Veronica Elkabetz the famous actress. From the beginning, from even the idea when I was writing anything, I came to him and just told him about the idea and he loved it, and we started to work on the process. It offered a lot of challenges along the road but this couple power that we created, which is rare in our field, empowered us to raise the money for this script. It’s still a lower budget than other movies but I don’t think you can see it and think of it as low budget because it’s very well done and because of the love that it’s made with by all the people who took part.

Why do you think the movie has prompted such strong reactions from people? Because it brings something that people haven’t seen yet. It breaks all the stereotypes that we use to see characters of Arabs and Palestinians, particularly – and women, for sure. So, it put the issues in the forefront, and until now we have hidden them under the cover. It makes people ask questions and I think get strength from it. So, I suppose the movie is about the women trying to find liberation within their own lives.

Do you think in the end that they manage that? Of course! I don’t think that they compromise themselves. Each of them in their own way has resisted what this society expected from her. It’s a very important wave in her liberation, and of course it’s not a happy end. I don’t think life and reality is happy, but it is winning a battle. During the battle, you get a lot of kicks and you’re smashed, but you still stand on your feet.

I suppose, like you said, it’s winning in a battle, do you think it’ll only be temporary then? No. I think that when you start, you cannot go back.

On another note, the movie kind of walks a fine line, because it draws a distinction between religion and religious people, and I was just wondering if… I don’t think I really concentrated on religion or religious people. I just think that I was talking about conservative people all over the world. This story is particular, for sure, as a Palestinian woman, but at the same time they are so universal. I think all women all over the world, and not just the women but the men that you see in the movie, are around us. It is just a difference of faces and names but these dilemmas and these conflicts, you can find everywhere - in Britain, Europe, the States, Latin America and the Far East - anywhere you want. Because this is how humanity behaves throughout the world and discrimination against women is everywhere. So, I don’t think it just about religion.

Definitely, And that sort of leads onto what I was about to ask you next, which was that you said that you sort of hoped that this movie sort of prompts a new era for representation for women, I was wondering what was necessary to achieve that? Yes. I think women’s solidarity is a strong message that comes from the movie - the power that women can change the reality if they start to lead. Also, what’s going on in reality, we will get a better reward, I believe.

I’d also like to ask you about the production of the movie. You wrote the script, so you’re quite familiar with the source material there, but I was wondering how much of your choices as a director are pre-planned, and how much of it was instinct in the moment? I can tell you that I am a perfectionist, and I did care about all the small details and I even wrote my script full of details – sometimes it’s a bit heavy for reading [laughs] but I wrote it full of aspects I love in cinema. So, you can read it and you can imagine and you can see, very closely what you see on the screen. But because I cast male actors and actors that are acting for the first time for cinema, but the common base comes from the same themes, from the same generation, so these situations are familiar for all of us. I wanted to make it really frantic and non- acting actually so we took all of the situations and the dialogue and improvised on it, and in some cases we got very magical scenes that just popped up and we kept it for the shooting.

How do you think that affects the dynamic of the movie? I think the energy that you feel watching it is totally the way of life, the reason of life - most of those characters live in the real life. It gives the actors the feeling that you are part of it, so it makes it closer for the audience.

So, the soundtrack of the movie was important I thought, and was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the role music plays in your film? Yes, I am really into music, I am a DJ, and as someone like Sana Jammelieh, who plays Salma – she’s a real life DJ too and she was the first person who taught me how to use all these mixers. I wanted to bring the sound that we really hear and like in our daily lives to the movie and to include the mix of the musicians. Some of them are Palestinians and some of non-zionist Jews like me, as we say. One person is an original score musician who unfortunately we couldn’t give credit in the movie, because he is from a country that we don’t have relations with as an Israeli citizen. He could be in jail if I put his name. But we made the music without meeting each other, skyping during the night, and that makes a really authentic sound of what we really live.

I suppose on another note, I wanted to know who are you influences as a filmmaker? I think there are a lot, but specifically for this movie, I hope you can feel that a bit of Ken Loach and Egyptian cinema in some way also. Let me say from the Palestinian cinema, there is a movie called Ajami, don’t know if you’ve heard about it, but it is a first-person movie – it’s a cooperation between an Israeli director and a Palestinian director called Scander Copti, who were also nominated at the Oscars. It talks about Palestinian-Israeli citizens, and it was the first time that they put us inside Palestine-Israel in the cinema because to Ajami, all the movies were still about just the conflict and occupation.

Can you tell us about projects that you might be working on at the minute? I have to say that this is the first part of a trilogy that I would love to continue. But it will not be continuous stories or continuous characters, it will be a continuous theme. But meanwhile, before the next feature film, I’m working on a TV series that is inspired from the movie, but it’s a criminal comedy. I’m really looking forward to shooting it and to continue the work so that the audience can see it.

As a final question then, what would you most like audiences to take away from In Between? I think that the activism that the movie brings to the cinema. The voice of women solidarity. The voice of changing the controversial way of life that we hate to be in. And to make the world a better place.