SAUDI ARABIA. The Saudi film industry took another step forward last week with the public screening of a locally produced movie, suggesting the government could be moving towards lifting a three-decade old ban on cinemas.

The premiere on Tuesday of Mnahi, which was produced by Saudi-owned Rotana studios, marks the second public screening of a Saudi film in a little more than a year, after Sabah al Lail was opened to the public on a commercial release in October 2007 during the Eid al Fitir holiday.

Rotana Studios is owned by Prince Waleed bin Talal, a Saudi billionaire, and it is believed his connections with the royal family played a major role in the movie’s public showing.

“I am correcting a big mistake, that is all,” Prince al Waleed had told the New York Times in a 2006 interview prior to the launch of Rotana Studios’ first movie, Keif al Hal. “I want to tell Arab youth you deserve to be entertained, you have the right to watch movies, you have the right to listen to music.

“There is nothing in Islam – and I’ve researched this thoroughly – not one iota that says you can’t have movies. So what I am doing right now is causing change.”

Movie theatres existed in Saudi in the 1960s and 1970s, but they were banned in the early 1980s after conservatives consolidated their support.

Ayman Halawani, General Manager of Rotana Studios, said in a press statement on Tuesday that “Saudi cinema will not only produce but it will market its movies in its home country and among its viewers, and here lay the significance of this event”.

Mnahi, screened at the King Abdulaziz Cultural Center in East Jeddah, tells the story of a Bedouin man who struggles with modernity after getting rich. The movie played at theatres in Geneva and Paris before being shown last week in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Egypt.

Rotana did not disclose any information about the cost of producing the film or of marketing it but said the company is determined to produce more Saudi movies and screen them in such cities as Jeddah and Taif.

Keif al Hal, the first Saudi movie Rotana produced, was written by an Egyptian, filmed by a Canadian and shot in Dubai. The film was a disappointment in Saudi because of the weak performance of Hisham Abdulrahman, its inexperienced main actor and a national heart-throb.

There had been much anticipation over Mnahi, mainly because of Faiz al Malki, the film’s controversial star who aroused anger in Ramadan while appearing in a soap on satellite television.

Al Malki used foul language during his appearances in the soap, which was not well-received by Saudis. The satellite channel MBC had to censor most of the later episodes to placate viewers.

Still, al Malki was optimistic about the success of Mnahi, especially since it was released in Europe and the Arab world as well as inside the Kingdom.

“I wish that this film will be a true drive for all commercial Saudi films,” said al Malki, who plays the lead role of Mnahi, the Saudi Bedouin who emigrates to Dubai after striking it rich.

But al Malki’s optimism is not shared by Saudi critics, most of whom are sceptical of Rotana’s productions.

“I don’t believe that this film will make any impact on the development of the movie industry in the Kingdom,” said Khalid Rabeei, a Saudi film critic who wrote the first book on the history of cinema in Saudi Arabia.

“Rotana Studios is concerned about ‘the first this’ and ‘the first that’, but what value its ‘for-the-very-first-time’ movies will add to the real art of cinema, no one is concerned," he said in an interview for The National.

Rabeei, who was a member of the jury in the first Saudi film contest that took place over the Summer, said Rotana’s name was the only reason Mnahi had received so much attention.

In 2006, a privately sponsored event, titled the Jeddah Visual Shows Festival, consciously avoided using the word “film” or “movie” in its programme guide. It was a four-week-long event that showed films to mixed audiences three nights a week.

Rabeei said this festival, not Mnahi, marked the reintroduction of public screenings in Saudi Arabia.

Still, al Malki said Mnahi would have a positive impact on the Saudi film industry.

“We need to start with experiments that may look simple to many, although they are costly,” he said.

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