Time goes by in Jenin. While I’m writing that story, my last day in the Cinema Jenin project has begun. 7 weeks I’ve been here, for some people that might be a long time, however, for me it was like a short film. I spent 50 days as a volunteer in this project and what I lived to see was much more than I expected when I had left Germany. Before I started my journey to the north of the west bank, friends of mine had mentioned: Why Jenin? Isn’t that a quite dangerous place? I was not sure, what I shall answer them. I didn’t’ know so much about Jenin with its approximately 50.000 inhabitants, including the neighboring refugee camp. After staying 7 weeks in the city and according to my experiences, I’m able to answer them: Don’t worry: it’s one of the most comfortable places I’ve ever been with lots of friendly and open minded people.

What I appreciate beyond that was the work in the project itself. Retrospectively, I’ve recognized a deep team building process between local and international members of the Cinema Jenin project. The project has become a melting pot for Palestinians and international volunteers, who have -due the common working process- grown up to one team.

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Three and a half months before the opening festival will take place in Jenin, two workshops offered by Cinema Jenin have been started. Volunteer Mike Gentile is very glad to lead a film and editing workshop with about 30 Palestinian locals: “It’s a new experience to offer a workshop and I really enjoy the time with the participants because all of them are very interested in learning how to create a film.” Both workshops are kindly sponsored by HERZENSSACHE e.V. from SWR Baden Baden.

That enthusiasm was a crucial factor for Mike to defer his intended studies, which would begin next month. According to that, he will stay in Jenin for an undetermined amount of time to build up a professional film team, which will be able to create advertising movies for the new LED-Screen. That huge screen (4×6m) to be placed on the cinema’s roof probably arrives in May. The participants are trained in technical skills like shooting, cutting and editing. “The workshop is a great experience for us, some kind of adventure”, Mona Staiti, a participant, said. One of the main characteristics of the workshop, which she especially points out, is the teamwork. “All of us are involved in discussions and processes so that everybody for example gets the chance to be a director or cameraman. We take all decisions together.”

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The Cinema building is still under construction, but one of our main objectives – media training and intercultural communication – has come to a further step. Right now, about 20 young people from Palestine and Germany hold a short film workshop together here at Cinema Jenin.

Together with Goethe-Institut and Beleza Film, young film makers are realizing their short film ideas under the topic “One day in the West Bank”. Over 50 young Palestinians, between 18 and 30 years old, had applied with their own film ideas. The submitted applications cover a wide spectrum of issues such as experiences at checkpoints, the role of women in Palestinian society, stories about their daily life. The 10 best are now developing, shooting, and cutting their own short film production together with a German partner under the professional and technical supervision of Beleza Film.
Forming a network, improving skills, exploring different cultural backgrounds and expressing them by film are seen as the most promising benefits by the participants.

In Summer 2010 the films are to be premiered at the Cinema in Jenin.

Wendelin Marmon

For the opening festival from the “cinema jenin” in august 2010, we are planning a small theatre play which should be performed in the cinema!

In Summer 2008, in the Cuneo Center in the Jenin Refugee camp, me and Ziad Bakri decided to start the first theatre workshop with children from the camp. When we arrived Ismael, had already collected a group of actors who were joining in a mask workshop. Ziad was by my side to translate. You could feel that he also loves children a lot which is very important anyway…

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Salam aleikum! Shukran! Affuan! These are familiar words to all of us in the guesthouse. It is sufficient to make people smile in the street and shops, but after a wile, you really want to learn more. So we found out that literally around the corner there is a language school, the Student’s Scientific Society Center SSSC. The other day, we kindly have been invited to talk about our future cooperation, to get to know the teachers, their approach and the location. So Felix – who by the way speaks a fluent Arabic and myself (whom you will rarely see on any photo because I am always taking them), we went to school again…

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This is my report of the first „Cinema Jenin TV“ workshop for our „Global Eyes TV“ contribution. Before coming to Jenin, I wrote an email to Fakhri, our project manager, and asked him to invite the boys of the first spot productions  for another workshop. On the second day after my arrival in Jenin, the 6 boys came to the guesthouse and we made our concept. Marcus’ son, Tom, Marcus’ son, and his friend Paul, who both were spending their holidays in Jenin, became part of the team. In the first step, we decided to make a trailer about Jenin and introduced ourselves to you. I decided to divide the group into three teams. The first one worked with the big camera to shot scenes of the city and the daily life in Jenin and the camp. The second group took my small camera and made interviews with the people of Jenin about their life and the Project Cinema Jenin. The third one shot photos of the group and filmed the surroundings, the making of. Every day we rotated the teams so that everyone could learn to handle the big camera and the different tasks as well. Because the boys do not speak technical English very well, Ma’amun and Amin, our project management’s assistants, supported us in translating. By doing so, they also profited to learn something about film-making.

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Dear friends of Cinema Jenin,
While surfing in the internet, I found a challenging project first established in Berlin/Germany: „Global Eyes TV – TV for global youth“. It’s all about building-up online tv-channels all around the world for young people showing their commitment and insights into their daily life. People form 16 countries, among Afganistan, Albania, Cambodia, Burma and Rwanda have already started to work on their first reports. See the first results online.

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