Vidéo Ala Al Rimal

Television and video have taken Kuwait, and the whole Gulf region, by storm. The CEO of Kuwaiti television points out the bulimia of his fellow citizens. Video is everywhere: at home, on the beach, in cars and video clubs. This flood of images gives rise to differing reactions. The women see it as a way of escaping the seclusion to which the traditional social structure condemns them, while the men criticise the “indecency” of foreign programmes. Egyptian or American serials, music clips and world “news” suddenly invade not just daily lives, but also the imagination, and upset society’s codes. A humorous tale of the “old” and “new”, of fiction and reality, which twenty years on gives the measure of the reality of televised “modernity”.