
"Saudis now are going to be able to go to a handsome theatre and watch movies the way they're supposed to be watched: on a big screen", Adam Aron, chief executive of AMC Entertainment Holdings, told the news agency.
Saudi Arabia launched its first commercial movie theater on Wednesday, ending a almost 40-year ban on cinemas under a push by the crown prince to modernize the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom. The kingdom held its first-ever fashion show last week with a women-only audience.
Saudi Arabia said previous year that movies "will be subject to censorship according to media policy standards of the Kingdom", to ensure they comply with Saudi values and principles and do not contradict Sharia, or Islamic, law.
The invitation-only gala event in a converted Riyadh concert hall on Wednesday was the first in a series of test screenings after a ban on cinemas was lifted past year.
"This is a historic day for your country", Aron told viewers at the screening of "Black Panther". The crown prince is behind measures such as lifting a ban on women driving that will go into effect this summer, and bringing back concerts and other forms of entertainment to satiate the desires of the country's majority young population.
The deeply conservative Muslim kingdom is ending a almost 40-year ban on commercial cinemas, which were shuttered in the early 1980s under pressure from Islamists but are returning through a modernising drive by the reform-minded crown prince.
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U.S. giant AMC has been granted the first licence to operate movie theatres. It said it expects the first venue to open later this year. The growth of the exhibition sector is expected to create around 30,000 permanent jobs and some 130,000 temporary positions, by 2030. For the most part, though, until now Saudis who wanted to watch a film in a movie theater had to drive to nearby Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates for weekend trips to the cinema. In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, he wrote that a friend once broke his leg at a screening in Medina when he jumped off a wall to escape the religious police and avoid arrest. By 2013, the film "Wadjda" made history by becoming the first Academy Award entry for Saudi Arabia, though it wasn't nominated for the Oscars.
AMC said men and women would be able to sit together at the gala screening.
Saudi movie fans already got a taste of Tinseltown in January, when a film festival in Jeddah screened "The Emoji Movie" and "Captain Underpants".
The smell of buttery popcorn filled the air as confetti rained down through the multi-story atrium where Aron and Saudi Minister of Culture and Information Awwad al-Awwad announced the launch and proceeded into the 450-seat hall.
The new movie theater also came equipped with prayer rooms to accommodate the daily Muslim prayer times.
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