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capitalise on the festive holiday time window. Which is also similar to my mum’s experience during school.
She recalls watching Isabella (1990) in the Odeon cinema in Seremban when she was in school and
watching the film during Hari Raya celebrations on the third day with her friends. I am sure that these
social activities occur in the same era as Van der Heide observes in the 1990s. The cinemas are also
estimated to be 368 in Malaysia, and the number of cinemas in Kuala Lumpur city is more than in
Singapore, which is 30. However nowadays, I can see that there are some patterns of film release after
discussing it with my classmates. Some observations that can be seen are local film releases usually will
avoid being at the same time as any popular or Hollywood films, and instead, the local films can be seen
releasing theirs at any time between them. For example, I have observed that the gap in release between
Imaginur (2023) and Mat Kilau (2022) is 8 months apart but released at the same time as Didi & Friends
the Movie (2023). As for now, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), Oppenheimer (2023),
and Barbie (2023) are released close to each other. There are only two local films that are around at the
same time which are Sue On (2023) and Kumang: Aku Ukai 17 Agi (2023). Which in my opinion, is a bad
time to release your films against the earlier, more popular box-office releases I mentioned.

The releases are not the only aspects that influence the local Malaysian industry as accessibilities
can also be a significant factor as well. Today, almost everything is interconnected in the city through public
transport and highways. The mode of transportation for most people is private vehicles and public
transportation as I mentioned earlier. Some places or malls are connected to public transport stations like
One Utama Shopping Centre which is connected with MRT One Utama station, NU Sentral Shopping Mall
with KL Sentral and Suria KLCC shopping mall with LRT KLCC station. This makes it easier and much more
accessible for people to meet and hang out. These places that I mentioned are among the examples of the
One Stop Centre that I am describing in my essay. Each of them has a cinema hall, with everything within
the same building with added entertainment spots and services that can fully engage the audience in their
time outside of film-viewings.

Upon arriving, visitors have parking lots to park and comfortable walking areas to reach the
shopping malls from the public transport station. There are a lot of food and drink choices to pick from
which can be strategically placed nearby cinemas to further ensnare audience members to not be far from
the cinema halls. Besides watching movies, visitors can do other activities such as ice skating, karaoke,
arcade, indoor sports, and many more. Even if going to the cinema is not their first choice, it still leaves
the opportunity for it can become one of their options. A lot of amenities are provided too besides the
parking lot; surau, toilets, including handicap toilets, services like valet parking, and borrowing of
wheelchairs have always made going to the shopping mall favourable for different types of individuals
ranging from youngsters to families. Today, we have around 108 cinema halls based on a list from Cinema
2
Online (n.d.) from different cinema chains offering a variety of different experiences for their visitors.

2 This dissertation is still in progress when submitted to International Conference on Local Wisdom in the Malay
Archipelago 2023

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