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 Australia 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.
7.00PM – BOY
Nagisa Ōshima (1969) 97 mins
A young boy is exploited by his father and stepmother as bait in an extortion scheme, conning motorists into paying compensation for faked road injuries. Ōshima forgoes his favoured mode of analytical detachment to present the boy’s confused perspective of his deranged family through visceral montage and fantasy sequences.
Starring first timer Tetsuo Abe and Fumio Watanabe (from Ōshima’s Cruel Story of Youth and Death by Hanging) as his war veteran father. With Akiko Koyama.
35mm print courtesy of the Japan Foundation
Trailer:
Preceded by
Yunbogi’s Diary
Nagisa Ōshima (1965) 30 mins
A haunting photographic essay on the plight of Seoul’s street children.
35mm print courtesy of the National Film & Sound Archive, Australia.
9.15PM – DIARY OF A SHINJUKU THIEF
Nagisa Ōshima (1969) 96 mins
Shot in the midst of political upheaval, Ōshima’s film viscerally captures, in handheld black-and-white, the unrest of the ’60s student movement in Tokyo’s vibrant Shinjuku district. Co-written with infamous militant Masao Adachi, the story concerns a young man caught stealing a book from famed bookstore Kinokuniya. Together with the female bookstore clerk, he is propelled into the city’s streets in search of sexual ecstasy and political freedom, encountering a plethora of real-life characters from Japan’s literati along the way.
“An explosive agitprop movie equating sexual liberation with revolution, whose impact has cooled only marginally” (The Guardian).
35mm print courtesy of the Japan Foundation.
Trailer:
The new Friends of Cinémathèque membership is a way for you to support the vitality of the Melbourne Cinémathèque, an independently organised, not-for-profit organisation.
In addition to annual membership you will receive:
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1 complimentary ticket for an ACMI-programmed cinema session
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3 x single passes to bring a friend to a Cinémathèque screening any time in the calendar year
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Discounted member prices for ACMI-programmed cinema sessions
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15% discount at Optic Kitchen + Bar and the ACMI Store
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Exclusive invitations to cinema events, previews and screenings
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Subscription to the ACMI Film Member e-news
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An ACMI Film Membership card that can be used to scan into Cinémathèque sessions
The first 30 new members to sign up for 2014 will also receive a discount code for online Madman purchases, and a new release DVD or Bluray courtesy of Madman.
See our Ticketing page for info.