Dedicated to screening rare & significant films in their original format.

The Melbourne Cinémathèque is a not-for-profit, volunteer-run film society.

The Melbourne Cinémathèque is a membership-based film society based in Melbourne, Australia.

We hold screenings at The Australian Centre for the Moving image every Wednesday night for most of the year.

Admission is by membership, which can be obtained on a short-term or yearly basis.

All Melbourne Cinémathèque annual memberships valid when we closed in March 2020 are being extended by 13 months, matching the period we were closed. Mini passes with either one or two weeks remaining at the time of our 2020 closure will also be honoured.

We are a volunteer-run, not-for-profit organisation.

NEXT SCREENING

TBC: June 23

TBC: 7:00pm UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2010) 114 mins – M

“No one else is making films this exciting and challenging” (Steve Erickson). Apichatpong’s audacious winner of the 2010 Cannes Palme d’Or centres on the last few days of the title character as he is joined by those he has loved and lost and contemplates his karmically charged past lives. Moving fluidly between the living and the dead, reality and dream, this uncanny, serene and truly borderless work is also the final instalment in Apichatpong’s “Primitive” art project exploring the Isan region in northeast Thailand. One of the key films of the 2010s.

CTEQ ANNOTATION
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives by MaoHui Deng

TBC: 9:05pm BLISSFULLY YOURS
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2002) 125 mins – Unclassified 15 +

This remarkable first fiction feature established Apichatpong’s reputation as one of the most innovative filmmakers to emerge out of Southeast Asia. Defying stylistic categorisation, the film tells the story of a love affair between a Thai nurse and a Burmese illegal immigrant who escape for a romantic picnic in the jungle, followed by an older woman they know. Winner of Un Certain Regard at Cannes, the film stunned critics and audiences with its sensual, highly unusual portrayal of romantic desire and contentment.

35mm print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia.

CTEQ ANNOTATION
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Transnational Poet of the New Thai Cinema: Blissfully Yours/Sud Sanaeha by Brett Farmer

ABOUT

The Melbourne Cinémathèque started out as the Melbourne University Film Society (MUFS) in 1948 and changed its name to Cinémathèque in 1984.

The Melbourne Cinémathèque aims to present films in the medium they were created and as closely as possible to screen films the way they would have originally screened (i.e. big screen, celluloid prints, not video or DVD).

Programmes include a diverse selection of classic and contemporary films showcasing director retrospectives, special guest appearances and thematic series including archival material and new or restored prints.

We have on occasion hosted numerous seminars featuring renowned film scholars such as David Bordwell, Adrian Martin and Ian Christie. We are also dedicated to providing new annotations on the films we screen via the CTEQ annotations, hosted as a part of the quarterly online film journal Senses of Cinema.

The Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered and membership-driven relying on support from individuals, foundations, corporations and government funding to maintain its high standard of excellence. If you would like to be involved, or to offer donations or sponsorship, please contact us.

Presented by The Melbourne Cinémathèque with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

Curated by Michael Koller, Adrian Danks, Eloise Ross and Cerise Howard for the Melbourne Cinémathèque

Subtitling Logistics: Lorenzo Rosa

Music Synchronisation: Michael Koller

Supported by Film Victoria, RMIT University & The City of Melbourne Arts Grants Program.

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