CINEMA REBORN AUGUST NEWSLETTER
VALE DAVID STRATTON
Cinema Reborn mourns the death of our Founding Patron and long time supporter David Stratton. We send our condolences to his Susie and his family. One of the greatest cinephiles has left us but his life, his work and his pleasure in the cinema will remain.
David was a stalwart supporter of Cinema Reborn from well before our first edition way back in 2018. He went out of his way to help us get going and was a presence at our programmes from the beginning. In 2018 he introduced our screening of ONE FROM THE HEART Francis Ford Coppola’s remarkable musical. Cinema Reborn screened, free of charge, Coppola’s own 35mm print of the film, a deal negotiated by another great cinephile and friend of David, the late Eddie Cockrell. David was also on hand to introduce our still all-time box office record holder, the 4K restoration of Luchino Visconti’s THE LEOPARD way back in 2021. We think we may also have been privileged to publish his very last piece of writing, a memoir about Robert Altman, Leonard Cohen and McCABE & MRS MILLER, which appeared only in our 2025 printed catalogue as part of a wealth of material on the film assembled by editor Anne Rutherford.
It’s hard to pin down what David’s greatest achievement was but for many cinephiles of the world it was the screening on SBS of a couple of thousand films, presented for decades as part of his Cinema Classics seasons. So many of the programs were seen with English subtitles for the first, and possibly still only, time. Their popularity could be measured by reports of bootleg VHS copies, complete with David’s introduction and closing remarks, being rented out in the video stores of the world.
David Stratton made a major contribution to cinema and to cinephilia and his name will never be forgotten.
CINEMA REBORN 2026- DATES AND VENUES
Cinema Reborn 2026 will be rejigging our format. In 2026 in Sydney and Melbourne we will open on a Friday evening and conclude our season on the next Sunday. In Sydney the season will run from Friday 1 May to Sunday 10 May and in Melbourne from Friday 8 May to Sunday 17 May. We expect over that time to screen between 20-22 programmes in each city, depending on the running times of each of the films chosen. There will be repeat screenings of some of the films on weekdays in Sydney from Monday 4 May to Friday 8 May and in Melbourne from Monday 7 May to Friday 11 May. MAKE A DIARY ENTRY NOW!
MELBOURNE APPOINTMENTS
Cinema Reborn welcomes David Heslin into our team of supporters in Melbourne. David has agreed to edit our hopefully splendid promotional booklet which will be due on the shelves of the Ritz and Lido Cinemas on 15 March 2026 and contain full program details, booking info and more.
Cinema Reborn has also appointed Grace Boschetti as our Melbourne Co-ordinator. Grace will be in charge of our liaison with the Lido Cinema to ensure our films and our presenters are all ready to go.
IL CINEMA RITROVATO HIGHLIGHTS
Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovato is the mothership of film restoration events. It now attracts over 5000 visitors, screens from morning till late at night in six cinemas, plus outdoors nightly in the city’s Piazza Maggiore. It tallies up more than 150,000 admissions. Three members of Cinema Reborn’s Organising Committee attended this year’s event and have returned with a huge wishlist of possible titles for our 2026 season. If you would like to know more about what was screened in 2025 click here
For several years Ehsan Khoshbakht one of the four program directors has published a poll in which he records the votes of scores of those attending. Each voter records a “Favourite” and a “Discovery”. The individual choices and the tallies are compiled on Ehsan’s website which you can find if you click here.
CINEMA REBORN E-MAIL LIST
Please pass this on to your friends who may be interested in Cinema Reborn’s activities and invite them to join our mailing list by sending an email to cinemareborn2025@gmail.com
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