Alex Ritman - Writer and Editor in Dubai now working for The National. Esquire, Time Out, LA Times, Sunday Times, Dazed & Confused.

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Cinema Jenin

A lonely picture house near the Israeli border could well be the symbol for future peace in the West Bank

To the residents of Jenin, words such as ‘peace’ and ‘hope’ are throwaway concepts, big ideas tossed about by distant foreign ministers in drab suits brandishing ‘roadmaps’. Sat in the northernmost tip of the West Bank, nestled in the hills and just spitting distance from the Israeli border, this city has suffered more than most in the ongoing struggle between occupier and occupant. Air strikes, tank attacks and even the odd arrival of a heavily-armoured Israeli Defence Force bulldozer, Jenin has seen it all, often with bloody consequences.

But this August, the opening of an otherwise inconspicuous building just over the road from the town’s hectic bus station could become a symbol for future hope, and indeed peace. Left dormant for over twenty years, Cinema Jenin, the town’s only movie theatre, is due to welcome guests once again. And to those involved, the move could help reinvent an area synonymous with uprisings and incursions.

The brainchild of a local Palestinian law graduate and a German film director, Project Cinema Jenin has captivated the city, attracted international volunteers wanting to lend a hand and helped raise hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations.

Marcus Vettel first came to Jenin in 2007. With a string of politically-infused films already under his belt, he arrived to direct The Heart of Jenin, a quiet, emotional documentary following Ismail Khatib. Just two years earlier, Ismail’s young son Ahmed had been shot and killed by an Israeli sniper while playing on the street, his plastic gun allegedly mistaken for a Kalashnikov. In an act of unprecedented humanity, Ismail agreed to donate Ahmed’s organs, including the heart, and in doing so helped save the life of a young girl in an orthodox Jewish family. In The Heart of Jenin, Marcus documented Ismail’s decision and subsequent journey to visit the donor recipients.

It was through the filming that Marcus met Fakhri Hamad, a Jenin resident who had been translating for Ismail. Together they decided go one step further than simply making a documentary, and actually help make a difference. And with nowhere to in Jenin to screen The Heart of Jenin, reopening the cinema seemed like the perfect plan.

“I felt disturbed about the reputation of this city and the reality,” Marcus explains, supping on a small cup of thick Arabic coffee. “Here the injustice was so big that I felt that I had to do something. And having done so many films, I thought now was the time to actually take responsibility and help change something, at least for one film. That’s how it all started.” And it’s this that has seen Marcus become a regular visitor to Jenin over the past few years. “Every three weeks, I’m here.”

Cinema Jenin originally opened in 1958, and in its day was one of the West Bank’s biggest movie theatres. Hundreds would flock each night to watch the best Arab films or sometimes even the occasional action movie from the US. But that was to change in 1987. While the rest of the world was getting its first taste of Withnail’s penchant for fine wines and antifreeze, film fans in the occupied territories were seeing almost all their cinemas close.

The first Intifada, a four-year period of civil disobedience as the Palestinians attempted to wrestle back control from their occupiers, had just begun, often with violent retaliation. And with this going on their doorsteps, cinema owners across Nablus, Qalqilya, Tulkarm, Jenin and the West Bank’s other major towns began shutting the doors to their theatres.

It wasn’t that the demand for film had faded in the rebellious environment, far from it. But cinemas had become easy targets for the Israeli army. Rather than rounding up youths via time-consuming door-to-door activities, they could simply turn up during a screening and arrest en masse. Fakhri, who was a teenager at the time, remembers it well. “The cinema owners didn’t want to be accused of helping collecting the Palestinian youths together.”

Also, with revolutionary spirit in the air, sentiments were moving in more religious directions. Many were worried that the odd flash of female flesh displayed in the Western films might attract the attention of more radical groups. “They were afraid the cinemas would be attacked,” says Fakhri.

So Cinema Jenin was closed, its metal doors locked shut and the city gradually forgot about their beloved movie theatre. And for twenty years, the building was left to crumble, its only visitors the pigeons who would flock through the broken windows and nest in the main theatre.

For Jenin’s new saviours of cinema, Marcus and Fakhri, having secured a 10-year lease of the premises from the previous owners, the first task was to evict these feathery squatters.

“It was disgusting,” says Fakhri. “Can you imagine what it like, with thousands of pigeons living in there?”

Next came the asbestos roof, which needed to be replaced. “One of the first donations came from a Palestinian company who sold us the material at cost price and gave the work for free.”

The real influx of money came shortly after, when the German foreign ministry took on Cinema Jenin as a charity, donating €172,000. “Then we started a real process,” says Fakhri. “We brought in experts in sound isolation and cinema work, plus an architect working from Germany.”

Around the same time, donations were used to take the lease on a four-storey building around the corner and help renovate it into a hostel.

“At the very beginning, I was hosting everyone involved at my place,” explains Fakhri. “But the team quickly started expanding, and it became impossible to have fifteen people staying in just one house with one toilet.”

The new Cinema Jenin Guesthouse now provides cheap dormitory accommodation to the cinema’s international volunteers, with all proceeds poured straight back into the project. More essentially, its balcony offers a secluded spot for a few beers in an otherwise conservative Muslim town.

For Marcus, the guesthouse – his Jenin home – is a symbolic monument to what he wants Cinema Jenin to achieve. “We realised that this town needs ordinary people, not just people who are already in solidarity with Palestine. You need to make something to make people from outside dare to come, so when they visit Israel, they drop by Palestine as well.”

And drop by they have. Alongside a team of regulars who have been coming and going from the very beginning, Cinema Jenin has attracted around 150 visitors and volunteers since 2008, each offering their time and experience, sometimes for a days, sometimes for several months.

While the German government helped provide the bulk of the capital needed to get the project going, much of Fakhri and Marcus’ work has been tied up in fundraising. And among the individual donors, the biggest contribution has come from – of all people – Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, whom they met at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2008.

“There was a press conference that involved Roger, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Gorbachev and Christopher Lee,” says Fakhri. “At the time I didn’t know who Roger Waters was, but I assumed he must be important given that he was sat with DiCaprio and Gorbachev.”

Fakhri wasn’t initially optimistic that Roger was interested in the project (“he was in a rush so couldn’t listen to me”). But the next day Roger gave him a shout out during in his speech while accepting an honorary ‘Cinema For Peace’ award, and followed this up with an email asking what he required. “I said that the first thing I wanted was for him to visit Jenin.”

Roger made a quick tour in May 2009 and Fakhri says he was delighted with the project, immediately donating money for the sound system. There’s even hope that Roger will perform at the launch ceremony in August, with maybe DiCaprio attending as well. If Leonardo does want to visit, he might have issues bringing his girlfriend, the Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli.

Whoever does turn up, once the initial fanfare of the reopening has died down and the non-alcoholic bubbles fizzled out, Cinema Jenin still has to continue to function. And the idea is to turn it into a full-blown, self-sustainable industry.

“We suddenly thought that we could keep the cinema going through producing films,” says Marcus. “And we can do it through producing advertisements. We can do it through distributing films through the Arab world. And we can do it through dubbing.”

By bringing the art of cinema making, dubbing and subtitling to Jenin, much needed money can be brought in from outside, helping keep the tickets price low and a team in regular employment. Most Palestinian exports are agricultural and have to pass to restrictive and often impassable border controls. For something like dubbing, it’s borderless.

Eventually, the aim is to develop Cinema Jenin itself as a brand which can be taken to other towns and replicated. “If they destroy the cinema, the brand can survive,” explains Marcus.

‘They’, of course, are the Israeli soldiers, and while nobody in Jenin would ever dare rule out the possibility of tank battalions rolling back, Fakhri hopes that if and when their neighbours do come to the city, because of Cinema Jenin it’s on a more peaceful tip.

“We invited normal Israelis to see the cinema and they came. They were walking in Jenin, talking in Hebrew, without protection and without bodyguards. It went on the Israeli news, it was a big deal to those who thought that anyone going to Jenin would be killed. We want to say that anyone can come to Jenin, but you must first remove your weapon and wear your normal uniform.”

There’s also a message to the Palestinians. “Through this cinema, we are teaching the culture of peace. The people here in Jenin were sometimes forced, sometimes attracted to invest in wars,” says Fakhri, adding that this is why the city is estimated to provide 30-40 per cent of the suicide attacks on Israel. “The visitors who will come to Jenin will show the people that only if the environment is peaceful, will people come. When there are more people here, everyone feels the benefit. Cinema Jenin is a good way of showing that it’s time to invest in peace and give our town a good reputation.”