CINEMA REBORN NEWS - Multi-ticket passes for 2026, Dates, Volunteers Wanted, Tax Deductible Charitable Donations

 Multi-ticket discount passes for 2026

For the first time we will be able to offer multi-ticket concession passes that will admit to any five or any ten titles in our program. The five film pass will cost $80 and the ten film pass will cost $140. These are substantial savings on general admission prices at the Randwick Ritz and Hawthorn Lido. When added to the concessions available to Movie Club Members at the theatres and the cheapest student discount tickets on offer anywhere we would like to think we are making it possible for our audience to sample a seriously large part of the total program. Details of the multi-ticket purchases will be available early in the new year when we announce the first four titles for 2026.

2026 Program

We are quite long way down the road to confirming our Cinema Reborn 2026 titles. A number of previously unrepresented countries and directors will be featuring in our program. Some of the great film-makers will also be represented for the first time including the esteemed film-makers pictured below and at the bottom of the text.

Dates for 2026

Cinema Reborn is changing its programming arrangements for 2026 to enable our program to be presented over two weekends. In Sydney at the Randwick Ritz we will be opening on Friday 1 May and closing on Sunday 10 May. In Melbourne the season at the Hawthorn Lido will commence on Friday 8 May and close on Sunday 17 May.

Volunteers

Cinema Reborn always has a need for volunteers to help on our information desk and to monitor the door at the screenings. If you would like to know more send your name to cinemareborn2025@gmail.com and mention which city you are in and your availability (Nights, Weekends, Daytime)

Charitable Donations

The major cost of presenting Cinema Reborn comes from the screening fees paid to archives and producers. Since our inception supporters have understood the need for continuing support to ensure that the annual season is able to present the very latest and very best international and Australian film restorations.

Tax deductible charitable donations have enabled us pay these fees and keep our admission charges to regular Ritz and Lido prices (with the lowest student concessions of any similar film-related event). We have once again set up a page via the Australian Cultural Fund to receive donations of any size, large or small. You can find it IF YOU CLICK ON THIS LINK

On SBS On Demand (with lots of advertisements) - Rod Bishop recommends MUSSOLINI: SON OF THE CENTURY (aka M. Il figlio del secolo), (Joe Wright, Italy/France 2025)

Benito Mussolini (Luca Marinelli), Mussolini:Son of the Century

This is a long way from the restrained and tasteful Joe Wright of Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Anna Karenina and the criminally underrated The Soloist.

Let loose on an eight-part adaptation of the first volume of Antonio Scurati’s biography of Benito Mussolini, Wright uses a highly theatrical Luca Marinelli to play Mussolini as a fascist dictator who continually breaks the fourth wall, speaking directly to the audience as though we are the second most important member of the cast.

Wright mashes up Mussolini’s rise to power between 1919 and 1925 with crash-cut documentary footage (all excellent). He traces Mussolini’s fight with Gabriele D’Annunzio, arguably the true founder of Italian fascism, and someone always accompanied by a splendid samurai. He includes Marinetti and The Futurists and their short-lived fascination with the Blackshirts (the Fasces of Combat). He makes the fascist rallies look like mosh pits at punk concerts; and he includes sadist ultra violence that could make A Clockwork Orange blush.

With near identical skull and cross bone attire to their German neighbours, there’s an aria from M Butterfly, passages reminiscent of Fassbinder and Brecht, and Mussolini continuously stirring up his Blackshirts, (he calls them “the dogs”), to assault liberal democracy; declaring it “dead after one hundred years”. He even turns to the camera to declare: “Make Italy Great Again”.

There’s also a lot of shouting. These are Italians after all. 

No matter how chaotic Wright’s style feels, it’s always riveting to watch.