Editor’s Note

The room is dark, the popcorn is fresh and salty, the Coke is sweet and cold, and two enormous faces loom, godlike, a few metres away. Eyes are on the screen, seats are settled into and, after a while, hands touch in the darkness. There’s a little jolt of electricity. Later, an arm is extended across the back of the seat in the age old yawn-and-stretch technique and a head nestles into the crook of a shoulder. Going to the movies was a great way to spend a first date. What else offered three perfect first-date features: darkness, proximity and the distraction of the screen? They meant you could get the feel of someone — the desire to hold hands in the dark if you liked each other — and you didn’t have to make uncomfortable small talk or have someone you hardly know watch you eat. It was all about chemistry.

But going to the movies isn’t popular as a date option anymore. And after the current crisis is over, who knows if we’ll ever be holding hands in a cinema again. Now we watch movies on mini mobile or laptop screens, where the power of the intimate closeup made colossal on the cinema screen is lost. Will the power of Hollywood be lost too?

There’s some good news there — instead of the US holding all the cards when it comes to on-screen entertainment, other countries will get the chance to produce stories that reflect the experiences of their people. The world of movies will open up to more perspectives and more various points of view. And of course, there’ll still be stars — even more of them if we count the TikTok and Instagram celebrities who will come out of this lockdown with hundreds more followers.

On that note, Arena Holdings is starting a campaign to document the life and times of this world-changing experience through the eyes of our citizens. We are asking South Africans to share their lockdown stories, videos and photos with us. We want the joys, the pain, the funny and the mundane. Look out for info about the campaign across all our titles.