Piracy causes losses of "many millions" to the film distribution industry every year, according to John Chahine, the general manager of the UAE branch of the distributor Italia Film, which handles about 45 to 50 films here each year.
He said that even though the country was at the forefront of fighting piracy in the Middle East, there was still a long way to go. "Piracy in the Middle East is completely open," he said. "The authorities have made attempts to narrow it down, but it's not easy."
Even underground Chinese DVD dealers, often seen selling pirated films door-to-door, will soon go out of business, he believed. "Now we have a new type of piracy, with the internet being fast enough for people to download entire movies on to their computers."
Italia Films, which also distributes Arabic-subtitled DVDs, recently released the blockbuster movie Killer Elite, starring Robert De Niro, and the Disney film Real Steel, to which the actor Hugh Jackman lent his Australian accent.
"Of course pirated copies save people a lot of money, but the positive thing is that people like to go out to the cinema; it's part of the social culture here."
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
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Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
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'Morbius'
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WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Dunki
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The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela
Edited by Sahm Venter
Published by Liveright
Napoleon
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