Cinema Jenin

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Cinema Jenin was a social entrepreneurship project run by a German-Palestinian team in the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank . Under the slogan “A cinema for peace”, in addition to reopening the city's only cinema, it also aimed to convey the idea of ​​a creative and non-violent protest and to establish a regional film industry. The idea arose from the film The Heart of Jenin . The initiators were the German director Marcus Vetter and his protagonist Ismail Khatib from Jenin.

Emergence

In spring 2008, filming of Das Herz von Jenin took German director Marcus Vetter to Jenin in the West Bank. The idea for Cinema Jenin arose when Vetter organized film workshops for young people after filming at the Cuneo Center run by Ismail Khatib - donated by the Italian city of Cuneo , also in response to Khatib's story.

The Cinema Jenin , built in the early 1960s, was considered to be one of the largest and most important movie theaters in the West Bank until it ceased operations with the outbreak of the first Intifada in 1987. The renovation and reopening after more than twenty years was the goal of Cinema Jenin eV, founded in November 2008. For this purpose, the non-profit association based in Tübingen works with local specialists as well as with international experts and volunteers. The cinema opened with a three-day celebration from August 5th to 7th, 2010.

development

Thanks to the story of the film Das Herz von Jenin and the worldwide media response, the culture and peace project found numerous public and private supporters, including the Federal Foreign Office , Pink Floyd singer Roger Waters and the airline Air Berlin, and was able to start work. Over time, further ideas arose to establish the Cinema Jenin project as a center for film, as an engine of the local economy and as a peace-building measure.

The first step was to expand the cinema infrastructure: the Cinema Jenin project now includes a guest house, an open-air area with an open-air cinema and a cafeteria with a garden. In the next step, the foundation stone for a regional film industry will be laid in the rented office building in Jenin. A sound and dubbing studio for film, especially post-production, should make it possible to show European films, primarily from the art house and independent sectors, in the Arab world.

The studios also served to prepare for the large, week-long International Film Festival, which took place in April 2011 at Cinema Jenin . In the spring of 2011, the activist and director Juliano Mer-Khamis was shot dead.

In December 2016 the site was sold and the cinema was badly damaged. It will soon be completely demolished. A shopping center is to be built at the same location in the future.

criticism

Parts of the local population fear a normalization of the balance of power in the region due to the strong peace-oriented orientation of Cinema Jenin and due to the isolated cooperation with Israeli institutions at the beginning of the project.

Awards

In 2011, the project was awarded the special prize at the Bernhard Wicki Film Prize - Die Brücke - The Peace Prize of German Films .

Movie

In 2012, a documentary - Cinema Jenin - The Story of a Dream - was completed, highlighting the project's crises and successes.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Foreign Office via Cinema Jenin.Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  2. ^ Article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Accessed on May 25, 2010.
  3. ↑ BBC report.Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  4. ^ The border violator: On the murder of Juliano mer Khamis.Retrieved February 17, 2013.
  5. ↑ Hanns-Georg Rodek: Cinema Jenin: lighthouse of hope demolished . In: THE WORLD . December 15, 2016 ( welt.de [accessed December 10, 2017]).
  6. ^ "Kino im Kulturkampf", FTD. ( Memento of April 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  7. ^ "Two years for a cinema in the West Bank" In: Zeit.de. Retrieved on February 17, 2013.

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