Sderot Cinematheque to host festival after city suffered on October 7

Survivors of the October 7 massacre have vowed they will dance again, and now the Sderot Cinematheque has announced that it will reopen on March 18, which is great news for movie lovers and Sderot residents.

Excitement is running high ahead of the reopening, which will take place at 7 p.m. and which is free (online registration is required), in the city that suffered over 50 civilian and 20 police casualties on the day of the Hamas massacre. Most of the city was evacuated following October 7, but many residents have returned recently, and the schools have reopened. Residents of Sderot, the closest city to the Gaza Strip, have demonstrated resilience for decades in the face of Hamas bombardments. 

The movie chosen for the reopening is Levi Zini’s Small Town Melodies, aka Only This Way Can I See You. It is a musical journey to Sderot in the 1990s, focusing on the children of the Mizrahi families that settled the city, recent immigrants from the Soviet Union, and the city’s thriving music scene.

The reopening will coincide with the 22nd Cinema of the South Film Festival

The reopening will occur within the framework of the 22nd Cinema of the South (Kolnoa Darom) Film Festival, which was originally established by the School of Audio and Visual Arts in Sapir College. This year, due to security challenges, the festival will go ahead in a slightly different format. Over the years, it has hosted many movie greats, including Richard Gere, Alfred Maysles, David Zucker, and Sergey Loznitsa. The Cinematheque was founded in December 1999 and has become one of the most important cultural institutions in Israel’s South. 

Alon Davidi, Sderot’s mayor, said, “I am excited and welcome the resumption of the Sderot Cinematheque after a period in which it had to close its doors. Its opening demonstrates the overcoming of another obstacle on the way to resuming the full routine in the city after some difficult months.”