The COVID-19 lockdown forced the team running Paris’ La Clef cinema to close their auditorium to moviegoers. So they hit on an alternative: Projecting movies onto the wall of an adjacent building.
“We said to ourselves: ‘If we can no longer show films to an audience inside a cinema, let’s take away the walls and show films outside,’” organizer Derek Woolfenden told reporters on Friday, shortly before the screening of 1955 Western Man Without a Star, starring Kirk Douglas.
Under the lockdown restrictions, Parisians are confined to their apartments except for brief outings to shop for food and exercise.
Photo: Reuters
However, they can catch the movie by looking out their windows or stepping out onto their balcony.
“We could feel a desire in the neighborhood for some sort of event, because there’s nothing left, the streets are empty, it’s very sad,” Woolfenden said.
The La Clef team took pains to engage the local community in its initiative: The titles to be screened each week are chosen in consultation with the neighbors.
“It’s great,” said Christine Davenier, an illustrator, who was watching the film from her balcony, where she sat propped up on pillows. “It takes us back to before, to screenings when we watched films all together.”
The La Clef officially closed its doors in April 2018, and the owners plan to sell the property.
However, since September last year the building has been occupied by an association of cinephiles and independent movie makers, headed up by Woolfenden, who oppose the sale and say they would stay put to ensure the building continues to serve as a cinema.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS