A few hundred Saudis braved a small band of religious hardliners have taken part in a historic event on Saturday night: the first public showing of a commercial film in decades in the Saudi capital.

With bags of popcorn and soft drinks in their laps, the men-only crowd of more than 300 in Riyadh's huge King Fahd Cultural Center cheered, whistled and clapped when the first scenes of the Saudi-made "Menahi" hit the screen and the film's score erupted in surround sound.

"This is the beginning of change," said university student Ahmed Al-Mokayed, attending with his brother and cousin.

Businessman Abdul Mohsen Al-Mani, who brought his two sons to the film, was ecstatic, after being denied public cinema for some three decades.

"This is the first step in a peaceful revolution," he told AFP.

"I don't want my two sons to grow up in the dark ... I told them that in the future they will talk about today like a joke," he added.

It was long in coming — and no one is certain that it will launch a thriving public cinema industry, with strident opposition from clerics who regard film, music and other entertainment as violating Islamic teachings.

Police at the venue had to fend off a small band of conservative Muslims who warned that films were bringing disasters on the country, citing a recent series of minor earthquakes in western Saudi Arabia.

"Allah is punishing us for the cinema," one said. "It is against Islam."

"Menahi," a comedy about a Saudi country bumpkin getting lost in the big city, was shown in December to huge crowds in the relatively free-wheeling Red Sea city of Jeddah. –AFP