Cinema Jenin

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Location:	Jenin, Palestinian Territory
Category:	Culture & Sports
Published:	06 August 2008
Progress:	93% funded
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Rating:	80 Ratings

The forgotten Cinema Jenin (West Bank) will be brought back to life by Ishmael Khateeb, from Jenin refugee camp, and Marcus Vetter, a German filmmaker, with the support of local and international helping hands - as a sign of peace, hope, and normality. More: www.cinemajenin.com

Built in the early 60s, Cinema Jenin was considered to be one of the largest and most impressive cinemas in Palestine. Every day hundreds of people watched movies from all over the world until the cinema was closed with the outbreak of the first Intifada in 1987. Ishmael Khateeb, a resident of the Jenin refugee camp, Marcus Vetter, a renowned German documentary filmmaker, and a group of zealous locals and foreigners want to bring the old cinema back to life. In 2005, Ishmael’s 11 year old son Ahmed was shot by the Israeli army. Despite his grief, he decided to donate his son’s organs to Israeli children saving their lives. In 2006, still deeply affected by his son’s death, he opens a culture centre for the children of the camp as an alternative to their street life. Thanks to foreign donations the centre provides many activities among film courses. A while later the children want to produce their first short film and they realize there is no place to show it: The only cinema in town was closed long ago. Cinema Jenin located in the heart of the city next to the old church, the market and the main roads can serve Jenin (50,000) and Nablus (140,000 inhabitants). Since Jenin suffers from great isolation on all levels - economic, social and cultural - there are very few possibilities of enjoying leisure activities and benefiting from cultural nurturing. The aim is to encourage a culture of cinema-going for the population of Jenin and its refugee camp by showing a mixture of unique, thrilling, entertaining and courageous quality films. see Heart of Jenin - http://www.filmperspektive.de/cms/content/view/74/1/lang,en/

by M. Vetter, created on 03 January 2010 at 10:01 AM

Dear Supporters from Cinema Jenin,

The dream to bring the dilapidated old cinema in Jenin back to life has developed a breathtaking dynamic.

On 2nd of December 2009 Cinema Jenin held its first press conference in Berlin to present the goals of project “Cinema Jenin”. The speakers were Assistant Secretary of State Martin Kobler, Head of the Department for Culture and Communication in the Foreign Office; Joerg Schumacher, Head of the Goethe Institute Palestinian Areas; Boris Palmer, Mayor of the University City of Tübingen; Marcus Vetter, filmmaker and director of the Cinema Jenin project. The protagonist of the film, Ismail Khatib, a guest on Thomas Gottschalk’s ZDF “The Year in Retrospect” on Sunday 6th December 2009 (ZDF, 8:15 p.m.) as well as Cinema Jenin’s Project Manager, Fakhri Hamad.

The work on the cinema, including all furnishings and technical equipment, is supposed to be finished by spring 2010. A stage for theatre performances and concerts has already been completed.

The original cinema chairs (400 pieces) are currently being renovated by local upholsterers. Besides that, there are plans to build an open air cinema with 1200 seats and a new cafeteria on the same property, which measures 2,000 m² in total. Since August, Cinema Jenin has been running a guest house (32 beds), which has been renovated by a group of international volunteers. This means that journalists and others who are interested to see the project firsthand can now stay in Jenin at an affordable rate. Since last summer there have already been more than 200 visitors.

The Grand Opening

The opening festival will take place at Cinema Jenin from 1 – 7 August 2010. A group comprised of Palestinian and international staff is already working hard organising the opening ceremony. The films shown will include ten international and ten Palestinian films, amongst which are blockbusters like ‘Deep Blue’, which will also be synchronised in Arabic beforehand by locals. ‘Cinema Jenin’ has managed to secure the official rights to distribute the BBC documentary ‘Deep Blue’ within the Arab world.

Job opportunities and sustainability

The majority of the cinema’s future staff will be Palestinians, who will run the cinema in cooperation with international supporters. The creation of jobs in technology, subtitling and synchronisation of movies, translation services, and film and commercial production will ensure that ‘Cinema Jenin’ will be sustainable in the future. We are planning to finish the construction of our own synchronisation office by 2010. Representatives of the well-known ‘Sam Spiegel film school’ have suggested, during a visit of the cinema in November 2009, the establishment of an ongoing exchange programme between film students in Jenin and Jerusalem. Film-making workshops for children will be held regularly from August 2010 onwards.

We still need your support!

The project Cinema Jenin still needs your support. Although the renovation of the cinema building will likely be completed by January 2010, we still need to finance the following:

- The renovation of the Cuneo Center for Peace

- Establishing of a studio for subtitling and synchronization

- A sound system for the open air cinema

- Lighting equipment and microphones for theatrical performances

- Digitizing 20 films for the festival

- An LED Screen

- Film Workshops for the youth of Jenin

- Festival organization

- Accomodation for volunteers

- Transportation for Equipment

In the coming month we will announce on the Betterplace Website new "Needs" for the ongoing of the Cinema Jenin Project.

Local companies sponsored us so far two refrigerators for the Guesthouse, so that we could close the "Need for refrigerators" and Al Jalbouni, a local steel company, will sponsor us partly a different system of a lightening rigg. With the 800 Euro of the "Need for a Riggsystem" we will be able to contribute partly by buying part of the material.