Criminal lawyer Laila, DJ/bartender Salma and religious student Nur are three Arab Israeli young women sharing an apartment in Tel Aviv. When Nur’s conservative fiancé encourages her to leave her studies and the city to marry him, her more secular roommates face their own struggles to balance modernity with tradition. Unfolding in a city where the protagonists are partly seen as outsiders, In Between candidly and movingly depicts their special friendship and unique bond. Co-presented with UW’s Middle Eastern Studies Program. The screening will be followed by a discussion led by Raied Haj Yahya, Graduate Student in the UW's Department of Political Science.

The Midwest’s hidden hub of modernist architecture, Columbus, Indiana, is the striking stage for this soulful portrait of a connection between two bookish introverts. In town to care for his ill father, thirtysomething Jin befriends Casey, an equally thoughtful and directionless recent high school graduate.  Acclaimed video-essayist Kogonada’s first feature matches the modernity of Columbus’s architecture with equally precise characterization and visual design.  “One of the best American debuts in ages… a manifesto for a cinema in which thoughtfulness, even intellectualism, is in no way exclusive of feeling, even of passion” (Film Comment). Co-presented by Madison’s Asian-American Media Spotlight. (MK)