Arab Israeli women live in a country that considers them not quite Israeli enough, and are part of a culture that views them as not quite Palestinian enough. Layered onto their citizenship conundrum are the inevitable gendered tensions between contemporary and traditional family life. Director Maysaloun Hamoud (female) tells the story of three such women in her remarkable feature film debut In Between, and she does so with ferocity, grace, and inordinate depth of feeling.

Lalia (Mouna Hawa), Salma (Sana Jammelieh), and Nur (Shaden Kanboura) share an apartment in the vibrant heart of Tel Aviv. Lalia, a criminal lawyer with a wicked wit, loves to burn off her workday stress in the underground club scene. Salma, slightly more subdued, is a DJ and bartender. Nur is a younger, religious Muslim girl who moves into the apartment in order to study at the university.