THE MELBOURNE CINÉMATHÈQUE | Dedicated to screening rare & important 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.

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 monthly or yearly basis.

NEXT SCREENING

August 22

7:00pm – THE BIG GUNDOWN
Sergio Sollima (1966) 107 mins – Unclassified 15 +

A widely underrated masterpiece starring Lee Van Cleef (For a Few Dollars More) in his first leading role, this cat-and-mouse adventure follows bounty hunter “Colorado” Corbett as he embarks on a score-settling manhunt for a Mexican criminal known as “The Knife” (Tomas Milian). Audaciously revisionist in outlook – and with Sollima’s iconic multilayered imagery, a taut script by frequent Leone collaborator Sergio Donati, and an explosive Ennio Morricone score – this volatile and morally ambiguous film is considered by some to be the best of all spaghetti westerns.

CTEQ ANNOTATION
Three Bullets for Three Dead Men: Sergio Sollima’s ‘The Big Gundown’ by José Sarmiento-Hinojosa.

9:00pm – THE MERCENARY
Sergio Corbucci (1968) 110 mins – Unclassified 15 +

With an all-star cast featuring spaghetti western staples Franco Nero and Jack Palance, Corbucci’s thrilling and ultra-violent political fable is a key work of the “Zapata” subgenre. Nero plays the titular mercenary who, in a typical Corbuccian (as well as Brechtian) flourish, stumbles upon his on-again-off-again friend (Tony Musante), reigniting a florid brothers-in-bloodshed partnership. Sometimes overlooked in favour of the director’s more sombre and deeply fatalistic The Great Silence, this is an incisive and eminently entertaining addition to both the “spaghetti canon” and the oeuvre of one of its most important proponents.

CTEQ ANNOTATION
‘The Mercenary’ by Darragh O’Donoghue.

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 the Melbourne Cinémathèque.

Curatorial Committee: Michael Koller, Michelle Carey, Adrian Danks, Eloise Ross and Cerise Howard.

Supported by Screen Australia and Film Victoria.

NEWS

For all the latest news including program changes follow us via Twitter & Facebook.

MAY ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2018

NOTICE: The committee of The Melbourne Cinémathèque wishes to make some changes to our constitution, however, to do that we now have to conform to the model constitution in the 2012 Act, so a number of other changes are also required.

Here is a copy of the constitution with the changes on RED.

The Melbourne Cinémathèque Constitution 2018.

We wish to pass these changes at the AGM on Wednesday May 30, at 6:40pm.

Please read the RED stuff and consider. It won’t take long. Then come along to the AGM.

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