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This Saudi film critic has waited decades for movie theaters to be legal again

We watched a movie play in public in Saudi Arabia for the first time in nearly 40 years.

Saudi Arabia opened its first movie theater last week, ending a nearly 40-year ban on showing films in public. The global blockbuster "Black Panther" sold out in about a minute.

Welcoming Saudi crowds back to the movies is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to reform the ultraconservative kingdom and create revenue sources outside of oil.

And in a country where there aren’t a lot of things for young people to do, bin Salman sees a huge potential upside to film. One government body calculated that in 2017 alone, Saudis spent $30 billion on entertainment in the Middle East — all of it outside the kingdom. That’s about 5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

The plan is to funnel that kind of money back into the country. Over the next 10 years, the kingdom plans to invest $64 billion in the entertainment industry and open up 300 movie theaters across the country.

VICE News caught a preview with Fahad al-Yahya, a psychiatrist and film critic in Riyadh who’s been waiting for this day for decades.