Al-Nasr, along with all of Gaza’s cinemas, closed in 1987; Tarzan and Arab were born in 1988.They walk up stairs blackened from fire and dirt, and through shafts of light emanating not from a projector but from holes in the building. Debris crunches underfoot as the boys move through cavernous hallways: rubble, but also discarded strips of film, broken cassette tapes, scattered molehills of garbage, even the bones of dead vermin. The paint has cracked and faded on the walls, but dozens of film posters still hang, blistered and browned.Tarzan and Arab have heard tell of what al-Nasr used to be. They’ve listened to descriptions of the crowds gathering noisily at the ticket window, of the beam of light from the projector and of the huge pictures, of the music emanating from the screen and the whispers from the patrons in their seats, as they were transported away from Gaza, together in the dark.
Source: Gazawood Dreams – Hidden Compass
