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 FORBIDDEN PARADISE
Ernst Lubitsch (1924) 73 mins – Unclassified 15+
Newly restored to the most complete version available for almost 100 years, Lubitsch’s sparkling silent comedy stars Pola Negri as a devilishly sexy, seductively sultry Czarina who embarks on an affair with a soldier (Rod La Rocque). The director’s first film with Famous Players-Lasky, which would lead to his long and fruitful partnership with Paramount Pictures, features his trademark visual sophistication and comic timing as well as richly decorative set design by Hans Dreier and elegant cinematography by Charles Van Enger. With Adolphe Menjou in a key early role.
Restored by the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Foundation with funding provided by George Lucas Family Foundation.
8:30pm CARMEN
Ernst Lubitsch (1918) 94 mins – Unclassified 15+
Loosely based on Bizet’s opera and the source novella by Prosper Mérimée, Lubitsch’s second film with the libidinous Pola Negri, released as Gypsy Blood in the United States, is a lavish vehicle for the great silent star. Released around the time of Germany’s final defeat in World War I, this is a formative work that points towards the director’s preoccupation with sexuality and historical subject matter in such key films as Madame DuBarry. Scripted by Hanns Kräly, influential French critic Georges Sadoul called it Lubitsch’s “first important film”.
4K DCP.
A film from the holdings of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (www.murnau-stiftung.de) in Wiesbaden.
10:15pm KOHLHIESELS TÖCHTER
Ernst Lubitsch (1920) 64 mins – Unclassified 15+
Amongst the most commercially successful of Lubitsch’s German films, this is an “adaptation” of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew transposed to 19th-century Bavaria. The film follows two sisters; Gretel is pretty and agreeable; Liesel is plain and obstinate (Henny Porten plays both). Tradition dictates that the younger sister cannot marry before the older and something must be done before both sisters are condemned to spinsterhood! Theodor Sparkuhl’s innovative camera techniques add extra punch to this underrated early Lubitsch film. With Emil Jannings.
A film from the holdings of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (www.murnau-stiftung.de) in Wiesbaden.
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, Cerise Howard and Andréas Giannopoulos for the Melbourne Cinémathèque
Subtitling Logistics: Lorenzo Rosa
Music Synchronisation: Michael Koller
Supported by VicScreen & RMIT University.
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© The Melbourne Cinémathèque
ABN 59 987 473 440
Supported by VicScreen, RMIT University & The City of Melbourne Arts Grants Program.