JERUSALEM: One of the best-known cinemas in the Palestinian territories closed Wednesday after running out of money, organizers said, six years after a grand reopening ceremony backed by international celebrities.
Demolition work had begun on the Cinema Jenin after it failed to attract enough customers in recent years, said Marcus Vetter, one of those behind the 2010 relaunch supported by rock musician Roger Waters and human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger.
The cinema, the last in Jenin in the northern West Bank, was also used as a cultural center and theater but is now expected to be replaced by a mall.
“It is a very disappointing and sad moment,” Vetter, a German director, told AFP, explaining the heirs of the original owners had sold it for about $1.8 million.
Built in 1957, Cinema Jenin was considered to be one of the largest and most impressive cinemas in the Palestinian territories but it shut down after the first intifada, or uprising, against Israel began in 1987.
The 2010 relaunch was the brainchild of Vetter and Ismael Khatib, a Palestinian who donated his 11-year-old son’s organs to save Israeli children after the boy was shot dead by an Israeli soldier in 2005.
At the time the 335-seater cinema received celebrity backing, including a state-of-the-art sound system paid for by a $106,000 donation from Waters, a long-time pro-Palestinian campaigner.
Jagger attended the launch, which was hailed as a major moment for culture in the Palestinian territories.
Asked why the cinema failed to attract clients, Vetter said it was a mixture of conservative attitudes and fears that going to this specific theater amounted to accepting Israel’s nearly 50-year occupation of the West Bank.
Celebrity-backed Palestinian cinema closes
Celebrity-backed Palestinian cinema closes
