Cinema To Return To Saudi Arabia

October 20th, 2005 · No Comments

The BBC reports of the first “cinema” (check article to see why I put quotes around the word) to open in Saudi Arabia for 20 years:

The authorities in Saudi Arabia have given permission for the first cinema to open there in 20 years, but the only clients will be women and children.

Foreign cartoons dubbed into Arabic will begin to showing at the end of the holy month of Ramadan in a hotel in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

This could herald a comeback for public cinema in the conservative kingdom.

Public screenings of films were stopped in the 1970s when clerics criticised them and demanded gender segregation.

Private clubs continued to show films until the practice was banned in the early 1980s for contravening Islamic law.

However, with many films and cartoons available every day on televisions throughout the kingdom, Saudi authorities have tentatively agreed to the temporary opening of a cinema.

Kamal al-Khatib, head of the media committee of Riyadh council, told the newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat that the council has allowed three viewings a day at the Intercontinental Hotel for two weeks, starting on Eid al-Fitr, when the holy month of Ramadan ends.

The cinema has been able to avoid the ban by restricting the audience to just women and children.