Day In, Day Out with Butheina Kazim, powered by MG: A Journey Between Screens, Spaces and Stories

Cinema Akil was never meant to be just a cinema. For founder Butheina Kazim, it began as an idea shaped by movement, community and persistence. Before opening its Serkal Avenue home in 2018, Cinema Akil existed nomadically for four years, staging pop-up screenings across galleries, rooftops, beaches and basketball courts. Permanence came later, not as an endpoint, but as a base to keep moving from.

In the first episode of Day In, Day Out, powered by MG, Zein Karam spends the day with Kazim reflecting on that evolution, travelling from Cinema Akil’s original Serkal Avenue location to its second outpost at 25hours Hotel One Central. The journey unfolds inside the MG HS Hybrid+, whose quiet hybrid drive and extended range mirror Kazim’s own long-term approach to building cultural space rather than chasing immediacy.

During the car ride, Kazim speaks about representative cinema as the backbone of Akil’s programming, work that holds space for joy, heartbreak, beauty and discomfort alike. At Serkal Avenue, she walks through an archive of vintage cinema posters, salvaged theatre chairs and artefacts rescued from demolished cinemas, positioning Akil as both a living venue and a repository of memory.

The episode ends at the 25hours Hotel location, conceived as an outdoor cinema and public gathering space that functions even when films are not playing. Designed to be lived in rather than visited once, it reflects the same philosophy that underpins Kazim’s work and the MG HS Hybrid+ itself: efficiency without urgency, movement without excess, and the freedom to go further thoughtfully.

Day In, Day Out follows cultural figures through the rhythms of their working lives. This first chapter sets the tone for what’s to come: reflective, rooted and always in motion.

Find out more about the MG HS Hybrid+ and book your test drive HERE.