Dedicated to screening rare & significant films in their original format.
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 ACMI, Fed Square every Wednesday night for most of the year.
Admission is by membership, which can be obtained on a short-term or yearly basis.
We are a volunteer-run, not-for-profit organisation.
7:00pm INDIA SONG
Marguerite Duras (1975) 120 mins – Unclassified 15+
Constructed, in Duras’ words, “like a poem”, this is the writer-director’s most haunting and famous film and is, along with Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman…, one of two iconic works of feminist cinema Seyrig completed in 1975. In 1930s Calcutta, the elegant wife (Seyrig) of the French ambassador yearns for love but is bored with the men around her as well as her oppressive bourgeois surroundings. Representing ’70s (post)modern cinema at its finest, the film’s languorous visuals and multilayered voiceover are seemingly dissociated but make for an unforgettable, hypnotic and intense experience. With Michael Lonsdale and Claude Mann.
CTEQ ANNOTATION
The Ghosts of Parties Past: Exorcising India Song
by David Melville
9:15pm BAXTER, VERA BAXTER
Marguerite Duras (1977) 95 mins – Unclassified 15+
A woman (Claudine Gabay) languishes in a sprawling villa where she is visited by several guests. In a truly formidable performance, Seyrig’s unnamed visitor acts as Duras’ envoy, her role and dialogue representing the author’s own disruptive feminism and compassionate existentialism. Drawing on elements from her earlier play Suzanna Adler, and adapted from a then-unpublished novel, this “harsh take on bourgeois conformity and prostitution” (Ivone Margulies) is accompanied by Carlos D’Alessio’s hypnotic score. With Noëlle Châtelet and Gérard Depardieu.
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 and ACMI
Curated by Michael Koller, Adrian Danks, Eloise Ross, Cerise Howard and Andréas Giannopoulos for the Melbourne Cinémathèque
Music Synchronisation: Michael Koller
State Government support by VicScreen.
Supported by the City of Melbourne Annual Arts Grants Program.
The Melbourne Cinémathèque receives funding from Creative Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund.
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© The Melbourne Cinémathèque
ABN 59 987 473 440
State Government support by VicScreen.
Supported by the City of Melbourne Annual Arts Grants Program.
The Melbourne Cinémathèque receives funding from Creative Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund.