Cinema City Nablus was a movie theater in the Palestinian city of

Nablus Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...

, located in the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

."Jenin cinema opens to fanfare,"
07/08/2010, Ma'an News Agency. The cinema opened in 2009."Nablus shopping festival brightens up West Bank,"
Mohammed Assadi, July 18, 2009, Malaysia Star. Built at a cost of $2 million, it was in a new ten-story commercial in the city center which also included a

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

. According to

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

, the theater featured a "shiny" lobby with a snack bar."Signs Of Economic Life Return To West Bank City,"
Peter Kenyon, July 10, 2009,

Former theater manager Farouk Masri told journalists that his family had decided that the political situation had calmed sufficiently to make building a modern movie house profitable in a city that had lacked one for many years. "It's been missing from Nablus, the cinema houses, been missing since the

first intifada The First Intifada, or First Palestinian Intifada (also known simply as the intifada or intifadah),The word ''intifada'' () is an Arabic word meaning "uprising". Its strict Arabic transliteration is '. was a sustained series of Palestinian ...

, over 20 years." He said that the new cinema was, "The talk of the street, I keep hearing ... Everybody is just excited, they're very positive about it, and they're very supportive". Among the excited children in the audience were many who had never seen a movie shown in a theater, only on the small screens of televisions and video players. Relaxed checkpoint rules meant that Arabs from many towns could come to Nablus for shopping, dining and movies. The theater featured four showings a day of international films "including the latest Egyptian movies" in addition to private event hire. Masri hailed the new cinema as "awe inspiring" but accused the international press of being "there-for-the-moment reporters" who seem "to have come down with a case of 'occupation isn't so bad' syndrome" as they focus on "the new thrills of the Nablus cinema" rather than on "the people's actual grievances"."From Kalashnikovs to knafa,"
Jesse Aizenstat, 27/10/2009, Ma'an News Agency. Cinema City was closed in early or mid-2019 and converted into an indoor bowling alley called Bowling City, after more than in losses. The owner, Marwan Al-Masri, stated that the reason was the low audience turnout and the lack of regulation to safeguard the intellectual property rights for films.dooz
(Arabic)

References

External links

Cinema City website
{{coord missing, West Bank Buildings and structures in Nablus Cinemas in the State of Palestine Theatres in the State of Palestine 2009 establishments in the Palestinian territories 2019 disestablishments in the State of Palestine