Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Habibi Hussein review: The true hero of Palestine's Cinema Jenin finally gets his story told

thenationalnews.com · 11dShare

Audiences love a feel-good story. The 2011 documentary Cinema Jenin: The Story of a Dream had good feelings in spades, featuring German activist and filmmaker Marcus Vetter stopping at nothing to revive a once-beloved cinema in a small town in the occupied West Bank and bring culture back to the dispossessed. In his years-long journey, he brought in foreign experts from his homeland to train the local population and, in the end, awarded them each for their humanitarian contributions, as local political figures stopped for a photo opportunity. But as those cameras were flashing and plaques were handed out to scattered applause, Hussein Darbi, Cinema Jenin 's true backbone for decades, was left watching from afar. He was, in the view of the foreign activists, an inconvenience. He had the gall to insist that he knew better, because he did, and the gumption to insist he be paid for his services, because he would go hungry without them. He lived in a town where people struggled to find brea

First report: Alex Bakri on Habibi Hussein and Jenin's lost cinema — newarab.com, 11d