In 1906 Akiva Arie Weiss immigrated to Palestine with his wife and children, to a land where he dreamt of building a thriving city of trade called “Ahuzat Bayit”. Weiss, a businessman and photographer, opened a small photography shop and sold Pathé cinematography cameras. After realizing that customers had no interest in the new technology, he ventured forth to and
made use of the cameras himself – and subsequently, in the fall of 1909, shot the first single-roll film ever made in the city of Tel Aviv. The film was sent by sea to Europe to be developed, but the ship carrying it was sunk in the Mediterranean in the early days of World War I. Recently, after over a century in which it lay on the seafloor, it was retrieved and restored for screening.
The unique conditions of murky cold darkness have allowed the faded images floating by to leave their mark; this is 3-minute film by Weiss stretches out to an image evoking 100 years of waiting in the depths of the sea.
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
