CAIRO – After spending long hours glued to the TV watching the latest news about Egypt, Ahmed Ibrahim, a law student, went into action. He phoned his friends and said they ought to go out somewhere. They decided to go to their favourite place: Al Tahrir Square. Although Ibrahim wanted to go to the movies, he willingly went along with his friends, as he was eager to find out more about what's been going on in Al Tahrir and the continual Friday protests there. Until last year, most young Egyptians eased the stress of everyday life by watching the new hit summer movies. You could see long queues of them outside local cinemas. But all that has changed this summer. In post-revolution Egypt, most middle-class youth are more interested in political talk shows and news programmes than going to the movies. “My friends and I always used to go and watch at least three of the new summer movies and that was all we ever talked about. But this season, we hardly know anything about what's showing at the cinemas, a 26-year-old engineer called Maged Sadeq told The Egyptian Gazette. This summer, instead of hitting the picture houses, most young Egyptians have been directing their attention to Al Tahrir Square, from which their new-found freedom was born after they vented their long-festering anger in a popular uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Al Tahrir has become the number one destination for most Egyptians, who want to get their rights – of which they were deprived under the old authoritarian regime – and for their dreams to be fulfilled. The result is a film season feeling the pinch. Cinemas have been suffering a sharp decline in revenues this year. The domestic box office revenues haven't exceeded LE20 million this year, with the highest-grossing movie Sami Oxid Al Carbon raking in less than LE8 million. This is very little compared to 2010, when a single film, Asaal Eswed (Black Honey), grossed more than LE22 million. Some people attribute the problem to the security vacuum and the unstable mood of the nation. "Unfortunately, I haven't been to the movies this season, as it's dangerous for me to stay out late in the streets in the absence of security," says Noha Nabil, a young graduate.
