November 23

THE THEATRE OF HISTORY: A TRIBUTE TO MANOEL DE OLIVEIRA

Until his death at the age of 106 in April last year, Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira (1908–2015) was considered to be the oldest active filmmaker in the world. Born not long after the invention of cinema itself, Oliveira was the only director whose career reached from the silent era to the digital age. He was also, unquestionably, a major figure of world cinema who was recognised by lifetime achievement awards from the Cannes and Venice film festivals as well as being awarded the French Legion of Honour. The Melbourne Cinémathèque takes this opportunity to pay tribute to a great director.


7:00PM – VISIT, OR MEMORIES
 AND CONFESSIONS

Manoel de Oliveira
 (1982/2015) 68 mins
Unclassified 15+ Unless accompanied by an adult

Oliveira’s cinematographic elegy is an exploration of spaces (including the director’s home in Porto), objects and loved ones encompassing the prodigious director’s life and filmmaking career. Made in 1982, with the instruction that it not be shown until after his death, Oliveira’s ruminative observations and fluid camerawork bring his distinctive world to life yet again in a deeply personal essay that drifts through physical spaces and orbits around intangible memories. Finally screened in 2015, it is now available with thanks to the Oliveira family.

35mm print courtesy of Cinemateca Portuguesa.


8:20PM – FRANCISCA

Manoel de Oliveira
 (1981) 166 mins
Unclassified 15+ Unless accompanied by an adult

Oliveira’s brilliant and expressly literary adaptation of Agustina Bessa-Luís’ 1979 novel is widely regarded as one of the director’s key works and the first of his long, fruitful collaboration with producer Paulo Branco. In many ways this tragic story of doomed love harks back to the elemental, shadowy world of silent cinema while paving the way for the extraordinarily productive final phase of the director’s career. Deploying a heightened mixture of self-conscious theatricality, historical detail and documentary fidelity, Oliveira’s opus is “one of the most complete expressions of the director’s eight decade career” (Michael J. Anderson).

35mm print courtesy of Cinemateca Portuguesa.

Wednesday 5 February
OPENING NIGHT 2025

12–26 February
BALLETIC SWORDFIGHTS, FLYING HEROINES AND BAMBOO FORESTS: KING HU, MASTER OF WUXIA

5–19 March
THE PAST IS ALWAYS PRESENT: THE EVOLUTIONARY CAREER OF ROBERTO ROSSELLINI

26 March – 9 April
OUT OF THE PAST AND INTO FLARES: NEO-NOIR IN 1970s AMERICA

16–30 April
CONTINENTAL DIVIDE: THE UNFLINCHING VISION OF MICHAEL HANEKE

7–21 May
BARABARA STEELE: THE QUEEN OF SCREAM

28 May – 11 June
VÍCTOR ERICE: COME TOWARDS THE LIGHT

18 June – 2 July
REBELLIOUS MUSE: DELPHINE SEYRIG AS ACTOR, DIRECTOR AND ACTIVIST

Wednesday 9 July
DEEP DIVE: THE RESTLESSLY INVENTIVE WORK OF DIRK DE BRUYN

16–30 July
APPETITE FOR DECONSTRUCTION: SEIJUN SUZUKI

3–17 September
CINE DE ORO: TREASURES OF MEXICAN CINEMA’S GOLDEN AGE

24 September – 8 October
ONE FOR THE AGES: THE BALLADIC, PAINTERLY CINEMA OF FRANTIŠEK VLÁČIL

15–22 October
“ON THE EDGE OF FICTION”: ELIA SULEIMAN’S CINEMA OF BELONGING

29 October – 5 November
MARX, MELODRAMA AND MARCOS: LINO BROCKA FROM THE MID-1970s TO THE EARLY 1980s

12–19 November
IT’S TIME: AUSTRALIAN CINEMA IN 1975

Wednesday 26 November
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3–17 December
THE COURAGE TO TAKE THINGS SERIOUSLY: JOHN M. STAHL’S UNIRONIC MELODRAMAS