SHARJAH: Sharjah Press Club, an arm of the Sharjah Media Centre, has launched an innovative project to study the impact of films and TV news on human mind as well as to make people aware of what they watch.

The project, called ‘Cinema News’, is a social experiment, where the organizers are recording people’s reaction to various aspects of films and news to study the impact of words and emotions on the viewers. At the same time, it makes the audience realise the impact of news and its presentation as well as the effect of films on them, which they fail to understand in normal circumstances.

Huda Salim, head of Sharjah Press Club, said that cinema is not just entertainment. Similarly, a TV news presenter does not only share news of the hour with the viewers. Some of them may bring smile to your faces, others may be emotionally disturbing, or some might simply leave you speechless. They cast long-lasting impact on you, something that lingers on in your memory.

She added, “When people go to cinema they go with entertainment in mind, whether they watch horror, comedy or an emotional roller-coaster. What they fail to realise is the long-lasting impact on them. It can be understood better by spending five-six minutes at Cinema News.”

The team has selected snippets from 13 films of different genres, both in Arabic as well as in English, while some of them have no dialogues. Each one is two minutes long, at most. To record the emotions better, only two seats have been placed in the theatre.