Saudis movies after 30 years

After 30 years since movies are banned in Saudi, finally they will enjoy it again.
They howled, clapped and ate popcorn as a normal movie goers do scene elsewhere, but revolutionary in Saudi Arabia where films have not played in public for decades.
Massive lines snaked out from the King Abdul Aziz Cultural Centre as Jedda residents queued up to see the first film open to public after 30 years, hoping the event heralded a big change in the ultra-conservative kingdom's stunted cultural scene.
Negotiations with senior political officials and the religious police, the Red Sea port of Jeddah and the nearby city of Taif allowed the Rotana entertainment group owned by the powerful Saudi tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, to show its new comedy "Manahi" for nine days.
The result was overwhelming, the 1,200 seats hall hardly meeting the demand for the $4 tickets for each showing.
Decades ago movie lovers in Saudi Arabia would crowd into clubs and halls to watch the same movies enjoyed throughout the Arab world.
But in the past 70s', clerics of the ultra conservative Wahhabist version of Islam which is practiced in the country cracked down and banned cenemas as having a corruption influence on society.
The taboo has been broken somewhat in recent years, with videos and satellite television, and movies shown surreptitiously at night in popular coffee shops.
Putting the film in Jeddah, a progressive city compared to its capital Riyadh, took the support of Prince Khalid al-Faisal, the powerful governor of the province of Mecca, himself a poet and supporter of the Arts. To see a movie in a real theatre, Saudis still have to travel to neighboring countries to watch the movie.
The local religious Police, from the feared commision for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, inspected the hall ahead of the scheduled scrrenings to ensure that women and men would be separated, following Saudi Arabia's strict rules of segregation between the sexes.
It was an adventure to see a movie in a place where there are no real cinemas, adding that it was exciting to see tha audience's thirst for a movie.