Show caption Will Saudi Arabia lift its ban on public screenings? … ex-film projectionist Saudi Abdul-Wahhab al-Sanyour at his video shop in Jiddah. Photograph: Khaled Mahmoud/AP Film industry Saudi Arabia to continue ban on ‘immoral, atheistic’ cinema The head of the country’s religious authority has said that legalising cinemas and concerts would ‘open doors to evil’ Catherine Shoard @catherineshoard Wed 18 Jan 2017 06.01 EST Share on Facebook

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Proposals to reopen cinemas in Saudi Arabia have been strongly dismissed by the current head of the country’s religious authority.

“Motion pictures may broadcast shameless, immoral, atheistic or rotten films,” said the grand mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, on his weekly television programme.

“There is nothing good in song parties, for entertainment day and night, and opening of movie houses at all times is an invitation to mixing of sexes.”

Public cinemas in the country have been illegal since the 1980s, but a plan to reintroduce them has been mooted by the head of the General Authority for Entertainment, Amr al-Madani, as part of the government’s Vision 2030 slate of cultural and economic reforms.

The grand mufti added: “I hope those in charge of the entertainment authority are guided to turn it from bad to good and not to open doors to evil.”

Vision 2030 was launched last year by the deputy crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz. Chief proposals include a reduction in unemployment from 11.6% to 7% and upping the private sector’s contribution to the economy from 40% to 65%.

The grand mufti attracted criticism in the west in 2012 when he issued a fatwa approving the marriage of girls as young as 10, saying “good upbringing makes a girl ready to perform all marital duties at that age”.

Next month should see the fourth annual Dammam film festival, a five-day celebration of cinema which manages to contravene the rules by holding private screenings in an arts centre on the Gulf coast city.

Artistic director Ahmed al-Mulla has said he hopes the festival would help encourage the authorities to relax legislation as film is “part of culture, part of loving life” and that its rejection is motivated by fear and ignorance.