Movie night in Alexandria could soon come with a very different kind of seat.
A new floating cinema experience is being prepared in Montazah, allowing audiences to watch films from small boats positioned on the water while a large screen sits along the beach.
Instead of walking into a conventional cinema and taking a numbered seat, visitors will effectively head onto the water for the screening — combining a movie, a boat ride and Alexandria’s Mediterranean setting in a single experience.
The project has already attracted attention online as one of the city’s more unusual new entertainment concepts.
How Will Alexandria’s Floating Cinema Work?
The planned setup is relatively simple.
According to reports on the project, a large cinema screen will be positioned beside the beach while viewers sit in small boats on the water facing it.
That makes the experience closer to a drive-in cinema on water than a conventional floating building.
Audiences will be surrounded by the sea while watching the movie, making Alexandria’s coastline part of the experience rather than simply the location where the cinema happens.
Local coverage has referred to the project as Sea Cinema Royal Plaza in the Montazah area.
Why Montazah?
It is difficult to imagine a more natural Egyptian setting for the concept.
Montazah is already one of Alexandria’s best-known seaside areas, combining beaches, landscaped gardens and historic landmarks with views over the Mediterranean.
Placing a cinema experience directly on the water takes advantage of something Alexandria already has in abundance: the sea.
Rather than creating an artificial theme around the venue, the concept uses the city’s existing coastal identity as part of the attraction.
The result sits somewhere between an outdoor cinema, a recreational boat experience and a night by the beach.
When Will the Floating Cinema Open?
For now, this is the detail visitors will need to wait for.
Current reports describe the Montazah floating cinema as “coming soon,” but no confirmed public opening date has been announced.
There is also no confirmed information yet on:
- ticket prices;
- boat capacity;
- screening schedules;
- how reservations will work; or
- whether screenings will operate year-round or seasonally.
Those details are expected to become clearer as the project moves closer to launch.
Sea Cinema Royal Plaza Already Operates in Montazah
There is already a conventional Sea Cinema Royal Plaza Montazah Cinema listed at Royal Plaza Mall in Alexandria.
Current cinema listings show it operating regular indoor screenings with standard seating and multiple films playing throughout the day.
Recent local coverage has linked the new sea-based concept with the Sea Cinema Royal Plaza name, but detailed official information explaining exactly how the floating experience will relate to the existing cinema has not yet been publicly released.
That distinction is worth keeping in mind until more launch information becomes available.
Is This Egypt’s First Floating Cinema?
Not exactly.
Some recent coverage has described Alexandria’s project as bringing the floating-cinema concept to Egypt for the first time.
However, reports from 2018 document an earlier floating cinema project on the Nile in Maadi, Cairo.
That project used around 70 boats as audience seating, with each boat equipped for small groups watching screenings from the water. Its owner at the time described it as Egypt’s first floating cinema and said it had received the required permits ahead of its planned official opening.
So the safer description for the new project is Alexandria’s floating cinema experience, rather than Egypt’s first.
Its Mediterranean beachfront setting, however, gives it a distinctly different character from the earlier Nile concept.
Floating Cinemas Have Appeared Around the World
Alexandria is joining a concept that has appeared in several forms internationally.
Venice has hosted Cinema Galleggiante, where viewers experience films and performances from boats and floating platforms on the lagoon.
Thailand famously hosted the temporary Archipelago Cinema in 2012, where audiences traveled by boat to watch films on a floating structure surrounded by limestone cliffs.
Similar concepts have also appeared in the Maldives and the UAE, ranging from luxury lagoon cinemas to boat-based screenings near the coast.
Each uses water differently, but the idea remains the same: turning the location itself into part of the movie-going experience.
Alexandria Has a Long Connection With Cinema
There is also something fitting about introducing another unusual cinema format in Alexandria.
The city has a deep relationship with Egyptian film culture and was home to some of the country’s earliest cinema activity.
Even Montazah itself has a cinematic connection. The historic palace grounds included the Cinema of the Princesses, an outdoor screening area reportedly used to show international films for members of Egypt’s former royal family.
More than a century later, Montazah could once again provide an unconventional setting for watching movies — this time with audiences sitting directly on the Mediterranean.
Movie Night, Alexandria Style
The biggest attraction of the new floating cinema may ultimately be less about which films are shown and more about how they are watched.
A movie screen by the beach, small boats replacing cinema seats and the Mediterranean surrounding the audience create an experience conventional theaters cannot easily replicate.
There are still plenty of details to be announced before visitors can actually book a boat, including an opening date and ticket information.
