DUBAI: The ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom of Saudi Arabia is looking at opening cinemas across the country if the government gives the final go ahead, the ministry of culture said on Thursday. For decades, despite the growing wealth and strong connections with the Western world, film has largely been banned in the country, with Islamic clerics claiming movies would drive the country backward and lead to unrest. Now, citizens could be able to see the latest releases, but it depends on the government's final say, which is expected to come in the near future. “When Prince Dr Abdul Aziz Bin Ayyaf, Mayor of Riyadh, said we are in the process of setting up cinemas, he would not have said this unless he has definite information in this regard,” Khoja told journalists while visiting King Saud University in Riyadh on 3 January. “At the Ministry of Culture and Information we are ready to cooperate,” he is quoted as saying in The Saudi Gazette. The Mayor of Riyadh has previously said around 230,000 tourists from Saudi Arabia visited the UAE in summer 2010 just to watch movies, a fact he claims “shows that cinemas in the Kingdom have become important.” Mohamed Jabar, a 24-year-old university student from Jeddah, said he is in Dubai because he wanted to watch Mission Impossible. “I don't understand why we aren't allowed to watch movies in cinemas,” he told Bikyamasr.com. “It isn't like we don't have ways to download movies and watch them on our own or travel to Cairo or Dubai just to do so. The government should listen to the people.” Film is seen as increasingly important in the Gulf region, with prestigious annual film festivals now being held in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, alongside events in more traditional centres of Arab media production such as Egypt and Lebanon. Still, the culture ministry said that even if films are readily available in the country, they would be heavily censored and anything deemed “un-Islamic” would remain outside the country. But for young Saudi's like Jabar, the hope is that big action films will be coming to a cinema near a Saudi city soon. BM
ShortURL: http://goo.gl/Nnxch Tags: Cinema, featured, Film, Movies Section: Art, Culture, Entertainment, Latest News, Movies News, Saudi Arabia
