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Cape Town – In December last year Saudi Arabia announced that they will be lifting their 35-year-ban on cinema.
On Sunday the first movie screenings opened to the public. It was a double-animation feature of The Emoji Movie and Captain Underpants.
With no formal theatres up-and-running yet the film was screened at a temporary setting in Jeddah.
The first cinema house is expected to open by March with as many as 300 cinemas and 2 000 screens expected to be built by 2030, reports Reuters.
Saudi Arabia begins screening films for the first time in decades after a 35-year-old ban was lifted https://t.co/mOYI1kgeEW pic.twitter.com/vIom23QMmM
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) January 15, 2018
The Saudi government will however censor films in order to make sure they are aligned with the country’s media code.
The return of the cinema is one of the reforms Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has instated to broaden the economy of the country.
In September last year the country lifted the ban on females driving and last week The Mirror UK reported that women were allowed to attend a soccer match.
