Gaza (Palestinian Territories) (AFP)

Red carpets, foreign flashes and "stars" ... In Gaza, cinemas have been closed for three decades, but rare projections in the streets are warming the hearts of moviegoers in this Palestinian enclave under Israeli blockade and led by Hamas Islamist.

At the opening of the local film festival on human rights, moviegoers thought they would attend the screening scheduled for Wednesday night for the occasion in the room Amer, abandoned for thirty years.

But the session was moved at the last minute in a street at the back of the cinema.

The director of this festival called "Red Carpet", Muntaser al-Sabaa, said he was warned at the last minute by the owners of Amer cinema that they could not use the room.

"All of a sudden, we are told: + we are sorry but the situation is dangerous + They told us they were afraid," he says.

"It's incomprehensible, we do not know who told our partner to block the permit to open the room," said Muntaser al-Sabaa.

He said he had obtained permission to open the room for a full week, which would have been a first since the late 1980s.

At the time, Hamas emerged and Palestinians rebelled against the Israeli occupation of their territories, including the Gaza Strip.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. And two years later, Hamas imposed itself on the enclave of two million people, banning events or behaviors deemed immoral.

With the coming to power of Hamas, Israel reinforced in 2007 the blockade imposed since 2006 on the narrow strip of land wedged between the Mediterranean, the Hebrew State and Egypt, cutting it off from the world, to protect itself, says he, his Islamist enemy.

The Human Rights Film Festival, which this year chose for the slogan "I am human," is expected to present about 45 documentaries over the next week.

- "Gaza" for Gaza -

It is partly financed by the Palestinian Authority, established in the West Bank and dominated by the Hamas rival Fatah movement.

"We chose the Bitter cinema because it is a symbolically strong place and it sent the message that there are still cinemas in Gaza and that people have the right to enjoy them," Al-Sabaa said. .

Without open cinemas, moviegoers in Gaza fall back on television or their laptops to watch movies.

Wednesday night, the 200 or so spectators did not shun their pleasure despite the illico move of the session out of the Amer room.

After the red carpet and the flashes of the photographers, more accustomed to the war than the worldly ones, the cinephiles had a documentary to be put under the eyes.

Title of the work: "Gaza". A critically acclaimed film directed by the Irish Andrew McConnell and Garry Keane, telling the story of Gazans' lives for several years.

Under the stars and a light breeze, the audience applauded scenes from the film. Others were saddened by the large-screen images of their daily blockade.

Still others dreamed of an evening in a movie theater.

"I came to see the film with my wife and my daughter, I was hoping to see the opening film in. When we go to Egypt, we will always see movies in the cinema. see a movie in a room, "notes Fathi Omar.

"I'm happy but I would have been happier if I had seen the film inside," says Dania Ziara, a Palestinian actress and director. "In the street, it's really noisy."

© 2019 AFP