http://www.palestinefilm.org/2008/
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/04/how_cinema_helped_me_to_surviv.html
The minute it saw it, I was drawn to Cinema al Hambra, which stands on Salahaldin Street in East Jerusalem. There was something about its name vanishing into the wall above the entrance and the broken glass windows fitted with wooden boards that created a new façade for the old building. For years, every time I passed the cinema's sealed doors, I would imagine the stories locked away within.
It took rumours that plans were underway to tear down the cinema and replace it with a commerical centre for me to find a way behind the sealed doors. Unable to find any pictures of the cinema when it opened its doors in 1952, until it's closure in 1989, I spent all of 1999 searching instead for the Jerusalemites living in the country and in diaspora who could tell me something about Cinema al Hambra.
I also searched for, but could not find, the one person who could let me into the theatre, which after its closure had acquired a reputation as a haven for those after drugs and casual sex. Eventually I found the 35mm projectionist, who supposedly held the keys. At first he denied having any access, worried I might report what I saw to the Israeli authorities who would confiscate the unkept cinema. The owners had paid unbelieveable amounts of taxes to the Israeli authories to retain control over the building, which is in a prime area in East Jerusalem, but they were unable to afford any renovation. Indeed, it turned out that the rumours of the commerical centre were true.
I finally convinced the projectionist to open the rusted doors. As I entered, I saw posters of films in Arabic, English, Hindi and Hebrew littered across the ground. Stepping over mounds of film bobbins and their strewn tape, piles of papers, broken glass, eaten up mattresses, we went into the cinema halls. I was completely overwhelmed. Standing outside the building I could not tell how incredibly large the cinema was. I closed my eyes, blocking out the shredded seats and grafittied stalls, and could see the grandeur of the place I imagined, hear the hundreds of well-dressed people coming to see Karnak, My Fair Lady, Jamleh Al Jaza'erya, Samson and Delili and Kafr Kassem, to name just a few. It was a grandeur forgotten; pushed into oblivion.
A year later, I was preparing for the first screening at Cinema Al Hambra of my film, Jawhar al Silwan (Quintessence of Oblivion) - which is being shown at this year's London Palestinian Film Festival - when then Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon entered the Muslim Al Aksa compound in the old city of Jerusalem. It was September 28, 2000 - four Palestinians were killed that day, marking the start of what came to be known as the "second Palestinian intifada".
It would, of course, have been impossible to have any kind of celebration that day so the planned party was cancelled. Over the next weeks I was forced indoors, unable to pass from one part of East Jerusalem into the other, bunkered in against my will. Unable to bow to the situation imposed on me, I left my home every morning armed with my camera - it was the only way I could keep my dignity under the most undignified and humiliating circumstances of occupation.
However, this experience of the violence gave me a clearer understanding of the film I had been working on. Quintessence of Oblivion reflects Palestinian life and culture in the city of Jerusalem during three turbulent times in Palestinian history - 1948, 1967 and 2001 - through the oral history of Jerusalemites, both living in the city and in diaspora, as well as my own experience based on the diary I kept during the 2000 intifada. The interviews I had done suddenly became tangible: 1948 and 1967 were no longer just the worst dates in Palestinian history. I gained an understanding of the people who had lived through these wars, and developed an affinity between our experiences.
As someone who had grown up on the stories of these tragedies, which followed after 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes, it was at first unthinkable that these same people would have the energy and desire to do anything following the "nakbeh" (the "Palestinian catastrophe") of 1948. After all, 78% of the original Palestine was lost, as we paid a price for Europe's war, the holocaust and the end of the British mandate in Palestine when the UN decided on the establishment of a Jewish state on a land already inhabited.
From questioning how Palestinians living in Jerusalem could possibly go to the movies after 1967, when another 250,000 Palestinians were made refugees and the West Bank and Gaza fell under Israeli rule, I finally began to understand the connection between the will and the need to survive.
Facing one of the most dificult times in Palestinian modern history, and being witness to the ongoing ethnic cleansing, daily violence, humiliation, grinding poverty, curfews, movement controls, assassination attempts, as well as the suicide bombings and tit-for-tat retaliations, almost broke my spirit and soul, and my faith in humanity.
I, too, needed to find a way to survive, to find hope in what seemed to be a hopeless situation. Unable to see my surroundings with my own eyes, I looked at loss, displacement, anger and injustice through a camera lens and the movies that played at Cinema Al Hambra. I discovered colours, song, dance, space and love - the continuation of life. A world with hope, which no violence, hate nor anger can destroy. A world of cinema.
My film, which was triggered by the plans to turn Cinema Al Hambra into a commercial centre, has helped in returning the cinema to its original state. Cinema Al Hambra will be opening its doors again at the end of this year.
· Jawhar Al Silwan (Quintessence of Oblivion) is showing at the School of Oriental & African Studies, London on Saturday April 26 as part of this year's London Palestinian Film Festival http://www.palestinefilm.org/2008/