Cinema of Bahrain

Cinema of Bahrain
Number of screens	44 (2009)
• Per capita	4.0 per 100,000 (2009)
Number of admissions (2009)
Total	2,184,612

The cinema of Bahrain is small as its lacks support from the government and the private sector. There are many short films produced by individual filmmakers, and about five feature films in Bahrain's history.

There are a number of theaters in Bahrain showing a mix of Indian, American and Arabic movies. Bahrain also has a cinema club established in 1980, and the Bahraini Film Production Company, established in 2006 to support the Bahraini film industry.

The first attempt to create a movie theater in Bahrain was in 1922, on the initiative of Bahraini businessman Mahmood Lal Saati. He imported a projector and set up a makeshift cinema at a cottage on the north coast of Manama. The first official cinema was established by Abdulla Al Zayed and associates in Manama, in 1937. The cinema had no air-conditioning or heating system so the cinema was moved to an open-roofed building during the winter season with one of the walls being used as a screen. In 1939, the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz Al Saud, visited the cinema while on a diplomatic visit with the then-Hakim Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa.

During the 1930s and 1940s, films were in black and white with the majority of them being predominately Egyptian as well as some American films. Westerns and the Tarzan films were reported to have been very popular in the country. Initially, the introduction of cinemas drew criticism from elderly citizens who stated that it "would destroy traditional values".

During the pan-Arab era of the 20th century, Egyptian films enjoyed immense popularity in the country.

In the early 1940s, the Bahrain Petroleum Company opened a cinema in Awali for its staff. The cinema moved to a different building in Awali in 1958, but finally closed in 1991.

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