Palestinian director’s awarded debut film has encouraged boycott
Nisaa FM: - Palestinian director Maysaloun Hamoud’s debut film has polarised opinion.
The film ‘In Between’ (‘Bar Bahar’) has been showered with plaudits internationally and scooped awards at film festivals in Canada, Spain and Israel. Yet among some members of the Palestinian community, it has faced calls to be boycotted. Hamoud even says she has received death threats on social media.
The film depicts topics rarely seen in Arabic-language films
The film was released last year and details the lives of three very different young Palestinian women, who live together in a Tel Aviv apartment. Laila (Mouna Hawa) is a liberally minded lawyer. Salma (Sana Jammelieh) dreams of being a DJ and struggles to tell her Christian family she is gay. Nour (Shaden Kanboura) is from a conservative Muslim background and due to marry a controlling fiancé.
With Laila and Salma ensconced within the Palestinian party scene, ‘In Between’ depicts alcohol consumption, drug taking, casual sex and homosexuality. All topics Hamoud admits are seldom touched on in Arabic-language films. But is also addresses the difficulties often faced by young Palestinians living in Israel, the control of men over women and the battle between tradition and modernity, between young and old.
According to Hamoud the topics are addressed in the film because cinema is a very powerful art form. And artists have a responsibility in our society to symbolise the reality. The topics of the film have been a topic of conversation inside the Palestinian societies, where the reaction has been that it is not happening.
The town of Umm-Al-Fahm, which has an overwhelmingly Arab-Israeli population and where the character Nour describes being from, took offense to how it felt it was characterized in the film. A statement from the town’s leaders earlier this year described ‘In Between’ as “without the slightest element of truth” and encouraged citizens to boycott it.
Hamound emphasises that the issues are universal topics, which people around the world recognise as well. She does acknowledge that the film has been a big shock for the Arab societies. “Of course, when you criticize something there is a reaction because nobody wants to see himself or herself as an ugly face in the mirror. The movie is a mirror for us.”
Hamoud knew that many would find points to be against it, but she really didn’t know what it would be exactly, “There have been threats to me, to the actresses, also to my family.” However, one threat she cannot really forget is that someone sent her a message that said “I have a question for you: Do you want the bullet in your head, in your heart or between your legs?”
At the same time though there has also been a huge amount of loyalty for the film. People started to write and to talk about the film as if it represented them and that they had to fight against the people who are against it.
A vibrant underground arts scene – and it is growing
Tel Aviv-based Maysaloun Hamoud hopes to have made the first of a trilogy. She finds that there is a vibrant Palestinian arts scene or underground scene that she is part of. And it is getting bigger and bigger. “It’s the same in other Arab countries and cities, in Beirut ... in Cairo, in Amman, in all those places ... we have the same subculture scene, we have the same conflict, the same dilemmas. The differences are in the background. Each scene has its own conditions. But basically we are totally the same. We wear the same fashions, we listen to the same music, we read the same things.”
So Hamoud’s film is part of a new cinematic Arab wave which started after the Arab Spring. Each year more and more films from the Arab world address the taboos with very similar elements. “Because of that we can call it a wave, talking about the taboos without fear, with a lot of courage and the feminine voice has started to be in the front more and more.”
Also the film might be about three Palestinian women, but it strikes a chord with people around the world. It's a particular story but it is universal. In Latin America, the Far East, everywhere women have these stories.
Source: www.cnn.com