TEL AVIV: Movie-goers boarded boats floating on the shimmering waters of a Tel Aviv lake on Thursday for a test screening at Israel’s first “sail-in” cinema.

With indoor film theatres shut because of coronavirus restrictions, Tel Aviv municipality launched the floating cinema to allow residents to catch a movie in the open air while still keeping a safe distance from each other.

The floating cinema provided seating aboard 70 pedal and rowing boats set in a lake, two metres apart to maintain social distancing.

Two films will be screened every evening during the last week of this month. Thursday’s screening, attended by about 300 people, was a pilot event which featured a family comedy, Paddington 2.

After successfully containing the coronavirus in May, Israel has been grappling with a second wave of infections and has reported a total of 98,550 Covid-19 cases and 789 deaths.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2020