The capital city’s residents have been calling for a drive-in cinema for years. And now it seems like desire can only become a reality. In Islamabad, all it took was a pandemic and social distancing SOPs to actually make it happen.
Despite the announcement by the Minister of Planning, Asad Umar, that movie theatres were allowed to open for business as of 10 August, several cinema houses kept their doors closed. Given the worldwide coronavirus threat, it wasn’t too hard to determine that no new releases were coming out. This in turn, did not justify the opening of theatres in this market.
One Islamabad-based Twitter user recently requested to Islamabad’s District Commissioner (DC) Hamza Shafqaat himself.
This is what he was tweeting:
“Sir, because we have COVID-19 on the rise and there can’t be a major gathering in town, how about the DC office organizing a car theatre on F-9 every weekend before things get back to normal. Stalls may be installed and served in cars by food suppliers. Could be a brilliant COVID operation.”
It turns out that DC Islamabad, Hamza Shafqaat was thinking the same thing. In reality, the DC Office is preparing a drive-in cinema for next month.
He said, “Working on it. We plan to have a car cinema next month. Stay tuned.”
There were plenty of feedback from the people. Some of them couldn’t help but recall the good old days when these drive-in cinemas around the country were a frequent fixture.
