Don’t bring down the curtain on the Smadar movie theater
The Smadar was the setting for director Avi Nesher’s short movie ‘True Story.’
By HANNAH BROWNThe Smadar was the setting for director Avi Nesher’s short movie ‘True Stor y’; he is seen here (at lef t) during filming with actors Tuval Shafir (center) and Yuval Scharf(photo credit: YOSSI ZWECKER)
The year 2017 will be a sad one for Jerusalem moviegoers if the Lev Smadar Theater, known by Jerusalemites simply as the Smadar, closes its doors on December 31 as is currently the plan.The theater, which is the oldest in Jerusalem, is located in the German Colony neighborhood on Lloyd George Street and is one of the few theaters in the capital that show art-house films. It has been part of the Lev Cinemas chain for 20 years, and during that time has been repeatedly threatened with closure for various reasons, among them complaints from neighbors about noise on Shabbat and real-estate developers who wanted to put up apartment buildings on the land, but this time it may truly be the end for this gem.The theater requires repairs that its owners cannot pay for, and local movie lovers have rallied in a bid to save it.There was a strategy meeting in late November, and one Smadar regular, Yoash Ben-Yitzhak, has started a petition online for those who would agree to pay NIS 300 for a 10-admission subscription to the theater. The organizers of the movement to save the Smadar hope that it will be possible to pay some or all of the NIS 3 million required for the repairs this way. Normally, a 10-admission membership would cost only NIS 265. To pledge your willingness to pay NIS 300, go to the website at https://www.atzuma.co.il/savesmadar or dial *5155 from a cellphone.By press time the website had received more than 1,500 signatures.Smadar customers have repeatedly suggested that the Jerusalem Municipality step in to save this treasured landmark, but so far it has refused.The only single-screen theater left in the capital, the distinctive building, which also houses a café, has a lobby that looks like no other, with a cobblestone floor and twisted tree trunks that tables are clustered around.It was built in 1928 by a German and was bought by Jewish owners in 1935 in response to a protest over a German owning a theater here while Jews were prohibited from owning businesses in Germany.The British Army used the theater during the Mandate period, when it was called the Orient. The name was later changed to Regent, and ultimately Smadar.Like many small businesses in Jerusalem, it has had its commercial ups and downs, but one thing is certain: It is an institution. Since it is one of the few theaters in Jerusalem open on Shabbat, many secular Jerusalemites head to the Smadar every Friday night or Saturday afternoon to see the latest in quality contemporary cinema from around the world. Its screenings often sell out, especially on the weekends, and it is one of the liveliest spots in the neighborhood.Newcomers and veteran Jerusalemites alike are distraught over the prospect of the Smadar closing its doors.Said Jill Batya, “ I made aliya in July and am so sad the Smadar is closing. It reminds me of all of the independent movie houses of New York City. Even in these few short months, I’ve seen films there and felt so at home.”Matthew Kalman, a foreign correspondent, author and filmmaker based in Jerusalem, said, “I’ve been going to the Smadar for 30 years, as it’s within walking distance from my house. I much prefer its intimate, neighborhood atmosphere to the glitzy, noisy overload of Cinema City and Yes Planet. It has the feel of the great independent cinemas in London, where I grew up, like the Phoenix and the Everyman.“It offers independent and art-house films outside the mainstream, including fabulous European, Indian and even Iranian and Saudi movies that we otherwise would never see.“My own movie had its premiere there in 2008, so I feel particularly attached to it. I am stunned that neither [Mayor] Nir Barkat nor [MK] Erel Margalit nor [investor and philanthropist] Haim Saban or any of the other moguls who claim to love Jerusalem are prepared to see this much-loved and still-used piece of the city’s modern heritage slip away.”For many elderly people in the neighborhood, the Smadar is the one theater within walking distance.One woman, who preferred not to give her name, said she often attends movies with a friend who is over 90 who lives nearby, and worries that her friend will not be able to travel to theaters in another neighborhood and that she will not find movies of such high quality elsewhere.Many luminaries in the Israeli movie community care a great deal about the fate of this theater. Movie director Avi Nesher, whose latest film, Past Life, was filmed not far from the theater, chose the Smadar as the setting for a short film, True Story, he made in 2013 as part of the anthology film Love Letters to Cinema, which was released in 2014.In True Story, Tuval Shafir, who starred in Nesher’s The Matchmaker, plays a soldier with a bandaged foot who goes to the Smadar to see Bed and Board, a movie by François Truffaut, and meets a young woman, Yuval Scharf, the star of Nesher’s The Wonders.The theater is a third character in the movie, and it’s no accident that Nesher chose to make a film about his love for movies there.In an impassioned message posted on the Facebook page (www.facebook.com/dontcloselevsmadar?utm_ source=atzuma.co.il&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign= petition) devoted to preserving the Smadar, Nesher decried the fact that since the 1990s, so many classic older theaters had closed throughout Israel.Treasured movie theaters are, according to Nesher, “like temples of cinema. This is a place that has value and importance, it’s a place where people come together to experience a shared adventure. In an irresponsible way, architectural marvels have been destroyed, right and left, to make way for all kinds of commercial enterprises, and in Jerusalem there remained a precious place, the Smadar Theater. That is truly a place that preserved the collective memory of cinema the way it should be seen, not on a phone and not on an iPad and not at home but in a collective act of 400 to 500 people sitting in an auditorium and sharing a narrative together.And sharing emotions and feelings. And when I heard that people are plotting to destroy this theater, it seems to me like a crime, a kind of crime against culture and society. I support anything that can stop this process. We must save the Smadar Theater.”For director Eytan Fox (Yossi & Jagger, Walk on Water, Cupcakes), the Smadar was a lifeline for him growing up, and talking about it brought up a host of memories.“I really remember the Smadar being very influential for me,” he said. “It was one of the reasons I decided to become a film director. I saw all the art-house films – I didn’t know what to call them at the time – all these European masters of the late 1970s and early ’80s. As a teenager, I was consumed by those kinds of films. The Smadar helped me transition from someone who only knew commercial American movies to someone who was into art films. The whole thing worked as this artistic, intelligent bohemian center, as we were becoming adults who were interested in culture.”Fox grew up relatively close to the Smadar, on Harav Berlin Street, and his father’s office was nearby, but even after his family moved to French Hill, “It was still worth taking the bus to the Smadar. I loved the whole atmosphere of that old neighborhood.”He especially enjoyed seeing movies there with his mother, Sara Kaminker-Fox, who was the head of the Jerusalem City Council and worked in urban planning for the Jerusalem Municipality.“My mother would get The New Yorker magazine, it would arrive two months after it came out in those days, and I would read reviews by Pauline Kael and other people, and then go to those movies at the Smadar. They didn’t come to other cinemas.“The last movie I saw with my mom before she passed away, we saw there. It was Pedro Almodovar’s Talk to Her. We would see movies, and then go to a café and talk about them afterwards,” he said.I first visited the theater in the early 1980s and have been there countless times since then. My children have grown up going to the Smadar, and it’s been a big part of my life, especially since it is the default venue for critics’ screenings in Jerusalem.When I was choosing where to live, it was important to me to be as close to the Smadar as possible.For many Jerusalemites, the Smadar has been a beloved piece of our lives for many years. Let’s hope the theater isn’t about to play its last picture show and that there is a way to save the cinema.