A television screen installed at the Dahl Al Hamam park.
For the first time in Qatar, an open air cinema has been set up at Dahl Al Hamam park which is available for visitors on weekends.
Mohammed Ali Al Khori, Director of Public Parks at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, inaugurated the outdoor cinema on Friday. This new addition to the public parks has been given the name “HawaScene”.
The opening ceremony was attended by a large number of people and also officials from the commercial partners including Ooredoo, Kia and Vodafone.
“The new initiative has been specially designed for children aged from 5 to 15 years. The 13 films which we sent to the Ministry of Culture and Sports have been approved by the authorities for screening at HawaScene,” Al Khori told The Peninsula.
Some of the films were produced by Qatar Foundation and are meant to enhance children's Arabic language skills.
“We have started the initiative from Dahl Al Hamam park and after a month or two we will take HawaScene to other parks as well. During this time, we will take people's feedback," he added.
“The HawaScene has been installed near the children's play area. In case they are not interested in films, they can join plays which are very close to HawaScene,” he said.
He said that the cinema programme was considered as a value addition to the parks. "Many countries of the world have had this experience of having screens for movies in the parks and we have now introduced this modern trend in the parks of Qatar," Al Khori said while inaugurating HawaScene.
Many countries in the world have the same experience like United States and France and Qatar has become one of the first countries to share the same experience in the region, and the aim of the initiative is to expand the role of parks and to make visitors enjoy, especially families.
"Every Thursday and Friday we will display films from 7 to 9pm," he said, adding that the films will be screened as per fixed rotation from those 13 movies which had already been cleared by the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
In addition to films, a number of other activities will also be displayed like children's intelligence contests and other infotainment activities. The width of the screen is 8 metres, while its height is 5 metres and is equipped with speakers distributed at various places of the park.
