JEDDAH, 18 February 2003 — It is Wednesday night, the weekend has started and young Saudis can be seen and heard all over Jeddah.
Creatures of the night? Hardly.
Bored? You bet.
The Kingdom itself is young, and more than 70 percent of its population is under the age of 21. It has one of the world’s highest population growth rates, currently estimated at 3.3 percent.
Jeddah is its most cosmopolitan city, with long wide streets filled with American-style shopping malls and diners.
But something remains defined by its absence: The cinema.
There used to be a number of cinemas in Jeddah.
Fatima, who grew up here, told Arab News that she used to go to the cinema in the 1970s with her little sister.
"It was very comfortable and relaxed, like an open-air theater similar to the ones they have in Egypt during the summer," she recalled. "I vividly remember watching ‘The Jungle Book’ with my sister!"
Now there are strong rumors that the cin-ema is about to make a comeback.
The reaction has been mixed among the city’s "shabaab" or youngsters, with the more modern among them talking excitedly about a night at the movies while the reli-gious conservatives draft letters of protest to the local papers.
"I heard the rumors, but I didn’t believe them," said Mai, a 20-year-old college student. "I think it would be a great thing, because we’re starved of entertainment. We need something besides going to cafes and shopping malls."
A clear indication of how popular cinema here would be is the way neighboring Gulf states, and especially the UAE and Bahrain, are flooded on weekends by Saudis who not infrequently go to the local cinemas there twice a day.
But in today’s Saudi Arabia, where over 80 percent of homes have access to satellite channels and a wide screen TV in the bed-room is the norm, would heavily censored movies really be palatable?
"Films have to be censored because of local religious sensitivities," argues Mai, "but if what’s deleted doesn’t take anything from the plot it’s fine by me."
A multiplex cinema complex would sell out all its screening seven days a week, so would also be a welcome boost to the flail-ing local economy.
"Saudi teens are now very informed when it comes to what the latest movies are," says a local video rental shop worker. "Anything featuring Julia Roberts sells like hot cakes!"
"There’s definitely need for more enter-tainment," argues a social science professor at King Abdul Aziz University. "There simply has to be something else for the young to do with their time. If they go to the funfairs on the Corniche, they are greeted by ‘families only’ signs. If they go to a shopping mall on the weekends, it says the same story."
