Historic! Akshay Kumar starrer film ‘Gold’ becomes first Hindi movie to be released in Saudi Arabia

NewsBharati    01-Sep-2018
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Riyadh, September 1: Historic! Akshay Kumar and Mouni Roy starrer ‘Gold’ became the first Hindi movie to be released in Saudi Arabia. Notably, last year, Saudi Arabia lifted the ban on commercial cinemas that lasted more than three decades. 

Gold movie, which was released on Thursday in theatres of Saudi Arabia received a huge response from the viewers. This is a first for the Bollywood industry to have a Hindi film screened in Saudi. Akshay himself took to a twitter to inform the whole country about the release of his film Gold in theatres of Saudi Arabia.

He tweeted, "The story of India's first Gold medal victory for the first time in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Happy to share, 'Gold' is the first ever Bollywood movie to release in the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, in cinemas from today!"


The movie is a historical sports drama inspired by India's first Olympic Gold medal. It shows the era of hockey played a young assistant manager, Tapan Das, who had a dream to one day represent his country in the sport. Other B-town bigwigs starring in the movie include Amit Sadh, Kunal Kapoor, Sunny Kaushal and Vineet Kumar Singh.

After lifting the ban from commercial movies, Marvel’s superhero movie Black Panther became the first movie to hit the Saudi Arabian theatres on April 18 of this year.

In the year 2017, Saudi Arabia lifted the ban on commercial cinemas that lasted more than three decades. The kingdom closed its cinemas in the early 1980s following a revival of hardline Islamic sentiment, but Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced to lift the cinema ban.

The announcement from Saudi government came as a part of the Vision 2030 social and economic reform program in the Kingdom and also follows the announcement that women in the Kingdom will be allowed to drive come June 2018.

Earlier in the 70s, cinemas were commonplace in Saudi Arabia and while they were mostly perceived as contradictive of Arab cultural norms, they were not banned. In Riyadh, there is a very small industry, producing mostly feature films and documentaries.