[Dubai Film Culture] Arthouse Cinema Hall at Dubai Mall

[fizz]

Shariqq, DIFF being held at Reel's is a great idea and very likely. The organizers have no exclusivity with either Grand or Cinestar and considering both locations were chosen for their tourist friendly ambiance, Dubai Mall trumps Festival City on the pazazz factor alone (Burj, Fountains etc etc), plus its less of pain commuting from one location to the other (remember last year.....?).

[animatedude]

Yeah, lets wait and see, but I have my doubts. Picturehouse and its leather seats will not be profitable without huge footfalls. We have already seen what happens to smaller releases when they come out after they have played in packed solitary shows during DIFF - they disappear or are dubbed. It's about commerce and if the chain puts in so much money and doesn't find the venture profitable, it will not be sustainable for them. Dubai does not have the audience for art house films. It just doesn't. Half the audience at these so called art house shows are foreign press providing coverage or people who've submitted to the hype of the advertising. Where are connoisseurs in the local population?

I'd like to know what kind of research the franchise opening this up did about a "need" for such a place in Dubai.

i'm sorry but why do you say that? don't get me wrong...i know sometimes it feels like we members of WM are alone in the gulf but i can assure you this,i don't have any statistics or anything to back my point of view but i can assure there are loads of arthouse films freaks out there...they aren't necessary avid moviegoers as us but there are.

i even think we should stop calling this a "niche", you mean if they let's say they screened "Amelie","Roger & Me","Lawrence of Arabia" and "La haine" for next month,with reasonable ticket prices,ppl will not show up?

i said this in the past and i say this again,this could be very very successful if it's done the right way.

[fizz]

I said what I did based on my experience of attending so called "art films" playing regular release with just me sitting there. I'll give you another perspective. There are many films that aren't, strictly speaking, art house material but get released during DIFF - Constant Gardener for e.g. - but when these same films are shown on regular release, shows get canceled because no one shows up for them. In fact, in most cases the converse is true - a lot (though not all) of the people who line up for these very films during DIFF do so without knowing what they are going in for. They don't know why they are buying the tickets except because the right and strategically placed advertisements in media have turned DIFF into the "in" thing for that one week. They have to be there opening night because all the gathering will be hip. They will show up 30 mins late and leave 15 mins early.

[shariqq]

i even think we should stop calling this a "niche", you mean if they let's say they screened "Amelie","Roger & Me","Lawrence of Arabia" and "La haine" for next month,with reasonable ticket prices,ppl will not show up?

I won't show up if they were screening Lawrence of Arabia.

[shariqq]

plus its less of pain commuting from one location to the other (remember last year.....?).

Precisely my reason for the wish. We could even eat at The Great Kebab Factory for lunch/dinner during a long break!

[madali]

Fuck this, if they censor the films. I can handle my summer blockbusters censored, but not my art film.

[shariqq]

I agree. If they're playing movies like The Man From Earth or even Little Miss Sunshine, fine. But if they're playing movies like Antichrist, and butchering it in the process, better to stay away.