Synopsis

It is a construction project full of superlatives: the world’s largest tower clock in Mecca, the Holy City of Islam. The building at the center of the sacred site breaks over 30 world records; its giant clock face is 43 meters in size, the minute hand measures 23 meters in length and the clock drives weigh 21 tons a piece. Put together it is an engineering masterpiece, 35 times larger than Big Ben and adorned in over 98 million glass mosaic tiles with 24-carat gold leaf. By night over two million LEDs illuminate the tower clock making it legible from distances of over eight kilometers.
 
The documentary The Mecca Clock Tower explores the engineering breakthroughs behind the development, fabrication and installation of this unique timepiece. Together with its partners, the architecture firm SL Rasch in Germany faces some unusual challenges. The team enters the project with a high-rise building already under construction, a tower not designed to support a 150-meter-high clock tower and a strict weight limit of 82,000 tons. As the pressure mounts, the team battle to construct the world’s largest clock at dizzying heights and in racing winds. How do you keep the structure as light as possible? And how do you deal with the toughest logistical challenge of all: a construction site out of bounds to everyone but Muslims. Time is short and the schedule is fixed. It promises to be a very, very close finish…
 
Shot over the course of four years in ten countries across Europe, in the Middle East and the United States, the documentary follows the astonishing story from the initial idea to the inauguration of one of the most innovative construction projects of the 21st century and also shows the Holy Site in Mecca in a way never seen before.
 
 
GER 2013, 48 Minutes, Full HD, Dolby Digital
Languages: German, English
 
The film crew who shot The Mecca Clock Tower was the first crew to use Cineflex in the Holy City of Mecca.
 
 
The film is now available in our Online Shop www.makkahclockshop.com
as BluRay and DVD.
SCREENINGS

Juli 2015
Fri., 03 July2015, 11:15 a.m., Deutsche Welle (German)
Fri., 03 July 2015, 05:15 p.m., Deutsche Welle (America)
Sat., 04 July 2015, 00:15 a.m., Deutsche Welle (German)
Fri., 05 July 2015, 11:15 p.m., Deutsche Welle (America)
Fri., 06 July 2015, 03:15 a.m., Deutsche Welle (America)
Thu., 09 July 2015, 08:15 p.m., Deutsche Welle (German)
Sat., 11 July 2015, 08:15 a.m., Deutsche Welle (German)
Fri., 11 July 2015, 12:15 p.m., Deutsche Welle (America)
Thu., 16 July 2015, 03:15 a.m., Deutsche Welle (German)
 

October 2014
Fri, 03 Oct 2014, 8 p.m., Al Arabiya
Sat, 04 Oct 2014, BHRT (Radio and Television of Bosnia and Herzegowina)
Sun, 05 Oct 2014, 10:20 p.m., Kabel eins
Tue, 14 Oct 2014, 23:20 p.m., Kabel eins

April 2014
Fri, 18 Apr 2014, 5.45 p.m. CET, Spiegel TV Wissen
Sat, 19 Apr 2014, 1.10 a.m. CET, Spiegel TV Wissen
Mon, 21 Apr 2014, 7.20 a.m. CET, Spiegel TV Wissen
Tue, 22 Apr 2014, 1.00 p.m. CET, Spiegel TV Wissen
Sun, 27 Apr 2014, 10.20 p.m. CET, Abenteuer Leben, Kabel eins (30 minutes)
 
May 2014
Tue, 6 May 2014, 11.15 p.m. CET, Abenteuer Leben, Kabel eins (30 minutes)
 
January 2014
Mon, 6 Jan 2014, 8.20 p.m. CET, Spiegel TV Wissen
Tue, 7 Jan 2014, 12.05 a.m. CET, Spiegel TV Wissen
Fri, 10 Jan 2014, 6.35 p.m. CET, Spiegel TV Wissen
Sat, 11 Jan 2014, 12.20 p.m. CET, Spiegel TV Wissen
 
December 2013
Sun, 8 Dec 2013, 9.05 a.m. CET, Spiegel TV Wissen

Credits

Directors:Bensalem Bouabdallah, Taner Karaarslan
Producer:Achmed Rasch
Associate Producer:Andrea Zimmermann
Director of Photography:O. Faruk Aksoy
Second Unit D.O.P.:Marcel Rathgeber
Music:Felix Brucklacher, Tom Deininger
Editors:Anne Wöhlert, Sven Kulik
  
 

Contact / Press / Distribution

Vista Rasch GmbH

Achmed Rasch
Phone:  +49 (0)7 11 / 997 30 00

 




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