“A very open-ended canon”: The Many Histories of the Melbourne Cinémathèque

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The special dossier is edited by Adrian Danks and Olympia Szilagyi, with editorial assistance from Digby Houghton. It draws on various accounts of the history of the Melbourne Cinémathèque as well as the archives of the Australian Screen Research Collection at RMIT University.

The history of cinema is littered with forgotten films, individuals, organisations and moviegoing experiences. This shadow or phantom history provides an important, sometimes overwhelming counterpoint to the stories and accounts that remain and rise to the surface in tallies of the 130-year existence of the medium. There are many lost or unmade films, as well as forgotten or undiscovered film practitioners, but perhaps the least documented aspects of cinema history are the ephemeral practices of exhibition and spectatorship, particularly outside of the commercial mainstream. This is further accentuated in relation to what might be seen, globally, as the peripheral or satellite activities taking place in somewhere like Australia, geographically distant from the historically central film cultures of London, New York and Paris. The cinephilic activities of the nouvelle vague in the 1950s, the writers centred around Movie magazine in London in the 1960s, and the mid-century film culture of New York have been well-documented, but the global practices of cinephilia and the important legacies of the film society movement remain underexamined and undervalued. As Adrian Martin claimed in his largely sympathetic and often brilliant 1988 essay, “No Flowers For the Cinéphile: The Fates of Cultural Populism 1960-1988,” this type of intense cinephilic activity constitutes “the originating moment of all national ‘film culture’ histories.”² This should then make us ask why there has been so little attention paid to both these “figures” and the wider movements they are part of, and why there are so few “bouquets” or “flowers” commemorating this rich vein of activity? This is, of course, accentuated by a “national” film industry in Australia that mostly sees itself only in relation to the feature film and the immediate “act” of production, and that has very little interest in most aspects of film history, let alone community-centred institutions that might seem peripheral to the mainstream.

This dossier reflects on a small but important institution that provides an instance of this film culture in Australia. Its focus is upon the 75-year history of the Melbourne Cinémathèque, taking in the 40 years since its inception in February 1984 as well as its previous 35 years under the moniker of the Melbourne University Film Society (more affectionately known as MUFS). It’s first screening took place in March 1949 – inevitably, the then very recently unbanned Bronenosets Potyomkin (Battleship Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) – and it has operated continuously ever since, mostly on a weekly basis. Although goning through various peaks and troughs over this time, it has remained a key institution in Melbourne and Australian film culture. It’s longevity as a not-for-profit, volunteer-run, membership-based film society is remarkable (though the much smaller Hobart Film Society has existed for a year or so longer) but so is its scale of operation. In the 1960s, it was both one of the most popular organisations at the University of Melbourne and one of the few places in Australia where films were made (e.g. producing two of only 17 features made across that). In the 2020s, it remains a remarkable model for how the love of cinema can be translated into an active, popular, dedicated and critically robust film community. For example, in 2024 it will exhibit around 100 films sourced from many of the key archives around the world (on a range of formats including 35mm, 16mm and DCPs), covering an eclectic array of topics and filmmakers: Australian documentarian Tom Zubrycki; French musicals; the remarkable collective known as the Makhmalbaf Film House; the “queer legacies” of Derek Jarman; and the careers of Ann Hui, Yasuzo Masumura, Jean Eustache, Jeni Thornley, John Flaus, Gloria Grahame, and numerous others.

The Melbourne Cinémathèque has also collaborated with many other organisations across its history including ACMI, numerous international embassies, RMIT University, the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, the Melbourne Super 8 Film Group, the Australian Film Institute, the Goethe-Institut, the Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australia, the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, and Senses of Cinema. Along with ACMI, the Cinémathèque’s collaboration with Senses is its longest lasting and most substantial. Beginning in February 2000, the collaboration between the two organisations – CTEQ: Annotations on Film – has seen the publication of over 1000 original articles commissioned from hundreds of writers around the world. This has helped to make the Melbourne Cinémathèque screening program visible locally, nationally and internationally, and has also provided important documentation of the works screened and the activities undertaken.

This dossier celebrates this history and contribution by asking various writers to reflect upon their experience of the Melbourne Cinémathèque as programmers, office bearers, audience members, interested observers and/or collaborators. It provides an historical record of and reflection on this often ephemeral and previously undocumented history. By bringing together these reflections with visual documentation and illustrations that provide evidence of this history, it aims to help reverse the pattern of neglect and forgetting that often marks these histories. This is, of course, only a partial and proudly parochial account of this history and it’s hoped it will provoke further discussions, arguments and even criticisms, both of the Cinémathèque and like-minded organisations around the world. It draws on the archives of the RMIT Australian Screen Research Collection, as well as the memories of a range of significant figures in the organisation’s history including its longest serving committee member, the mercurial secretary and executive programmer, Michael Koller. Although the Cinémathèque has benefitted from the close involvement of various figures who have often gone onto significant roles elsewhere – such as current Managing Director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Clare Stewart, and long-time editor of Senses of Cinema and Artistic Director of the Melbourne International Film Festival, Michelle Carey – Koller has been essential to the survival and success of the organisation for over 50 years. His commitment, deep knowledge, resilience, open but refined taste, and long-term investment in nurturing community reflect the wider values of the Cinémathèque and what has made it such a success. This dossier is dedicated to Michael and all those who have generously served MUFS and the Melbourne Cinémathèque over the last 75 years.

Endnotes