Rediscovering CAPTAIN THUNDERBOLT - A free webinar conducted by Michael Organ - 25 May - Sign up details

David Donaldson, who inspired the search for the complete version of the 1951 film Captain Thunderbolt for some decades, has sent through this invitation regarding a conversation to be conducted via webinar by historian Michael Organ. Michael located the long-lost print in 2023. Hear his story on Zoom. 

Produced by a radio, hoping for television, Sydney group with direction by Cecil Holmes and cinematography by Ross Wood, the film is milestone in the history and development of the Australian cinema. 

Ross Wood, Cecil Holmes shooting Captain Thunderbolt The webinar will take place on 25 May 2025 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM AEST

TO REGISTER CLICK HERE HERE ARE SOME BACKGROUND LINKS TO GET YOU PREPARED FOR WHAT SHOULD BE A FASCINATING CONVERSATION. Just click on each... Original print Captain Thunderbolt full length in 35mm! Report from NFSA 27 Sep 2024 Discover Michael Organ’s comprehensive blog News pieces on Michael's blog 2010 article by Graham Shirley David Donaldson's analysis of a key moment in Australian cinema

Defending Cinephilia 2021 - First instalment of the annual series - The editor offers his thoughts

 So… a delayed start to this series where cinephiles are asked to offer five highlights that made their year.. but contributions now called for and previous contributors will be contacted

Mary Harald, Tih-Minh

 

Tih-Minh (and Judex) on Blu-ray

David Hare leapt all over this and you can read his thoughts  IF YOU CLICK HERE but what has to be recognised is the fact the French taxpayer paid hundreds of thousands of Euros to get these films restored and returned to an adoring public. A couple of years ago French producers had access to an annual fund of some €30 million to have their back catalogues restored. Needless to say Gaumont and Pathe would have been the major beneficiaries. But when you have Feuillade in your backlist you have both an awesome responsibility, a huge cost and a massive opportunity. The French lab outpost of Bologna’s L’immagine ritrovato has done the company proud with these two films, now released on Blu-ray. David Hare didn’t mention the extraordinary music score by Julien Boury nor the very subtle incorporation of some sound effects – bird song, the sea, pistol shots. 

 

As a matter of interest, it was reported that Emmanuel Macron’s government has slashed the funding for this program down to €3 million or thereabouts per annum. Nevertheless the most recent list on the CNC site, which you can find IF YOU CLICK HERE means we can look forward to more Feuillade (Vendemiaire) as well as more restorations of Gance, Truffaut, Carax, Becker, Mocky, Capellani, Franju and Doillon among a host of others from every era of French cinema.

 

Tih-Minh has largely existed in a terrible copy on YouTube. It has French and Dutch intertitles. I tried to watch this version on a couple of occasions but gave up early. You can see what I mean IF YOU CLICK HERE. 

 

Ever since Tom Milne wrote about a Feuillade season at the NFT, using 35mm nitrate prints  from the Cinémathèque Française, Tih-Minh always had a reputation that placed it in the same Pantheon as Fantomas, Les Vampires and Judex. Now we know.

 

OK.ru

You can think of it as the 21^stcentury equivalent of the public lending library. That’s the most benign view. Needless to say many producers and their heirs and successors going back over a century think of them as thieves, and no doubt despise the Russian authorities who turn a blind eye  to permit blatant free exploitation of someone else’s intellectual property. OK.ru has become the go to site for enthusiastic cinephiles to upload their treasured collections for all to see. No one gets paid to upload a movie, no one gets charged to watch whatever they find in whatever condition they find it.  And its all there in plain sight not some dark backchannel where whatever is the latest has been purloined and uploaded mostly to cause grief. Some of the OK.ru users are utterly dedicated to the task of bringing the cinema’s history out of its closets and archives. By my count, someone called FleurRinna Guta has uploaded some 8000 films, all neatly categorised by star name, genre, period and nationality. A labour of cinephile love.

 

Cecil Holmes

Cecil Holmes and Three in One

The conventional wisdom about Cecil Holmes and his film Three in One is that the first two stories of the trilogy "Joe Wilson’s Mates” and “The Load of Wood” were very good and the third “The City” written by Ralph Petersen, was a clumsy and rather artless afterthought. Wrong. The screening of Three in One at Cinema Reborn in April, on a 35mm print from the NFSA that had hardly ever been through a projector, caused many to sit up straight and do a major re-assessment. The first story with its interpolations of some cod songs by The Bushwhackers goes on far too long. The second with Leonard Teale and Jock Levy is a small masterpiece. Petersen’s story captures the zeitgeist of the day superbly. 

 

The screening reminded me, if nobody else, that the AFI never honoured Cecil Holmes with the Raymond Longford Award, an oversight I shall not dwell on except to refer you to the list of winners. Many of them are exceptionally worthy but..

Moly Reynolds and David Gulpilil

 

My Name is Gulpilil

Moll Reynolds tribute to Gulpilil barely arrived before the great man passed on. A magnificent tribute and a reminder of an extraordinary life and unique career. The sequences featuring an unknown to me one man show that Gulpilil performed should surely be a priority for NFSA preservation, restoration and circulation.

Jed Mercurio

 

Jed Mercurio

Nobody does TV like Jed Mercurio. Ten years of Line of Duty is one thing. Throw in Bodyguard and an EP job on Bloodlands in just the last couple of years and you get quite some kind of prolific ability to keep millions enthralled.        

 

CINEMA REBORN - SUPER SATURDAY - A day of classics from South Korea, Australia, France culminating with Visconti's Palme d'Or winning THE LEOPARD

At 5.45 PM Saturday 1 May

THE LEOPARD (Luchino Visconti, Italy, 1963)

 

“One of the greatest achievements of Italian cinema.” — David Stratton, who will introduce the screening on the stage of the Ritz’s magnificent Cinema One 

 

Based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s celebrated novel, the 4K restoration brings out every detail of the sumptuous production design, every glorious costume and every facial expression with a clarity previously unknown.  Remarkable performances by Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon. The near hour-long ball scene which concludes the film is its own epic depiction of a society whose end is near.  

 

At 3.30 PM Saturday 1 May

LE CORBEAU/THE RAVEN  (H-G Clouzot, France, 1943)

 

“…a superb noir thriller, starring the great Pierre Fresnay, about the corrosive effect of poison-pen letters in small French town. Made in 1943, it is to the Occupation what Renoir's La Règle du Jeu is to the years before the Second World War, a devastating allegory about the state of the nation as weak people betray friends and neighbours. –Philip French, The Observer

 

At 1.15 PM Saturday 1 May

THREE IN ONE  (Cecil Holmes, Australia, 1953)

 

“a landmark in the development of the Australian cinema.” — Pike & Cooper, Australian Film 1900-1977

Cinema Reborn will be screening a beautiful, rarely-seen 35mm copy of Three in One from the NFSA collection. Three in One is three stories by Frank Hardy, Rex Rienits (adapting a Henry Lawson classic), and Ralph Peterson, each with linking introductions by actor John McCallum.

 

At 11.00 AM Saturday 1 May

AIMLESS BULLET (Yu Hyon-mok, South Korea, 1961)

 

Aimless Bullet masterfully captures the collective anxiety of post-war Korea… Banned shortly after its first screenings by the then military government, Aimless Bullet has now been painstakingly restored by the Korean Film Archive. Cinema Reborn’s screening will be the first for the restoration in Australia. 

 

TICKETS

There are tickets available to all sessions. You can book online (includes booking fee)  ON THE RITZ WEBSITE   or buy tickets at the Box Office from 10.00 am today. If you buy your tickets at the Box Office you can redeem the NSW Government Dine and Discover vouchers.

 

TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS

Cinema Reborn’s work is supported by a network of volunteers who freely give their time and service to select, manage, present and write about the annual event and its program. Donations to support this work are always welcome and our donors are listed in the printed catalogue providing they arrive before the print deadline this week. If you would like to make a tax deductible donation, no matter how small, or large, you may do so online through the Australian Cultural Fund. JUST CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS 

CINEMA REBORN - a few pointers, some thank you's, some recommendations - DESTRY RIDES AGAIN, THREE IN ONE, THE LEOPARD

James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Destry Rides Aagin

Cinema Reborn gets underway tomorrow night  Thursday 29th night at 6.30 pm when DESTRY RIDES AGAIN hits the Randwick Ritz screen in a brand new 4K restoration from Universal Pictures. The restoration was done under the supervision of Martin Scorsese’s World Film Foundation. Tickets are still available at regular Ritz Randwick prices and you can book IF YOU CLICK HERE (booking fee applies) or just walk up on the night.

 

…..and a special thanks to the enthusiastic staff at the Ritz who have recognised our festival with this special bit of business up in lights out the front.

 

….and again speaking of enthusiasts, a big thanks to David Tiley of Screen Hub for a terrific report on the prospects for the weekend and some recommendations. You can read his preview IF YOU CLICK HERE

 

 

…and another heartfelt thanks to Cinema Reborn’s two key institutional supporters the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and Italian Institute of Culture in Sydney.  The NFSA is supplying us not merely the 35mm print of Cecil Holmes 50s classic THREE IN ONE but a print in excellent condition that will show off Ross Wood’s remarkable black and white photography to its full effect. Some people are coming a long way to participate in what will be the film’s first theatrical screening in Sydney for decades, a unique opportunity given that the film has never been released on video or DVD, is not on a streaming service and hasn’t been screened on television for over fifty years. Special thanks to Cecil Holmes daughter Amanda Holmes Tzafrir for permission to have this rare screening.

Cecil Holmes with actor Sydney Cook during filming of 'I, the Aboriginal' at
Katherine River, Northern Territory, 1962.'
photo Sandra Lebrun Holmes,
'Faces in the Sun' autobiography. (Copyright Amanda Holmes Tzafrir)

 

The Italian Institute of Culture is supporting the screenings of the three Italian films in the 2021 selection  - THE LEOPARD by Luchino Visconti, LE AMICHE/THE GIRLFRIENDS by Michelangelo Antonioni and our first ever silent classic FILIBUS by Mario Roncoroni. The music for FILIBUS will be provided by the impeccable accompanist Donald Sosin on a specially recorded soundtrack

 

There are still tickets available to all ten sessions. You can book (includes booking fee) on ON THE RITZ WEBSITE   or buy tickets at the Box Office from 10.00 am each day. If you buy yoyur tickets at the Box Office you can redeem the NSW Government Dine and Discover vouchers.

TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS

Cinema Reborn’s work is supported by a network of volunteers who freely give their time and service to select, manage, present and write about the annual event and its program. Donations to support this work are always welcome and our donors are listed in the printed catalogue providing they arrive before the print deadline this week. If you would like to make a tax deductible donation, no matter how small, or large, you may do so online through the Australian Cultural Fund. JUST CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale, The Leopard

CINEMA REBORN - Countdown - A recommendation from Australian film-maker Phillip Noyce and a memoir from Amanda Holmes Tzafrir - THREE IN ONE (Cecil Holmes, Australia, 1955)

 

We have one feature film and five short films as our Australian film selection at Cinema Reborn 2021.

The feature film is THREE IN ONE made in 1955 and finally screened in Australia in 1957. It had a troubled history of exhibition including being rejected by the Sydney Film Festival Committee on political grounds. If you would like to know more about Cecil Homes and the history of the film you can find it on CINEMA REBORN WESITE.

 

THREE IN ONE Is a landmark film. It has not been shown on television for over half a century and has never been released on video, DVD or any streaming site. Cinema Reborn will be screening a 35mm archival print preserved in the collection of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

When we approached Australian film-maker Phillip Noyce and asked him to look over the 2021  program and select a favourite among them, his answer was simple “THREE IN ONE – UNDER RECOGNIZED AUSTRALIAN CLASSIC”.

Cecil Holmes daughter Amanda Holmes Tzafrir has also sent through a touching message about her father. It was originally intended to be delivered before the screening last year but Covid’s intervention has preventedthat.

 

Nevertheless here is what Amanda would like to say to audiences about her late father, his life and work.

 

“Quixotic, rebellious and drawn to trouble, Cecil Holmes belongs to a rare breed of radical adventurers who never give up. With a prodigious knowledge of the world, always a sharp eye in search of a story. He covered Hiroshima after the bomb. New Guinea on the brink of an uprising, Timor in the last days of Portuguese rule and Darwin laid waste by a cyclone. Narrowly escaping death squads in Mindanao, when writing his last book. His drive to make films and write screenplays, took him to Moscow, Peking, Budapest, New York and Hollywood, although back home in Australia he struggled to make ends meet.

 

Father, in your concrete office under our old tropical house where it was coolest, I sat quietly observing. The smell of stone, unfiltered 'Camels', carbon paper and rum pleasant in the humid air. Sitting tall at a well-beaten typewriter. The steady purpose of a humanist writing about mans inhumanity to man. I mused how the typewriter kept working after years of cigarette ash falling between the keys. Another lit one rests precariously on the lower lip as smoke hypnotically ebbs and flows, never drawn into the lungs. You stop to look up in thought, a brief adjustment of the black-rimmed glasses, a smile forms, clicking keys continue into the night. When the heat became oppressive we floated off East Arm in overly warm seawater, uncaring about watery predators. And never missed an opportunity to go to the pictures and talk about the film walking home. The backyard 'poets corner' with tree stumps and a few beers yielded visits from Douglas Lockwood, artist Yirawala, Don McLeod, Justice Dick Ward, Frank Hardy. Then away again to the wild places; Always to find dispossessed people struggling to survive and find justice in far flung places, to the great cities of the world, to the films and their makers, meeting actors, to writers and poets, to the battlers. 

 

“One of his favourite quotes – 'While there is a lower class I am of it. While there is a soul in prison I am not free.' - Eugene Debs.

To Book Tickets JUST CLICK HERE

CINEMA REBORN MARCH NEWSLETTER #2 - Australian Film Selection - THREE IN ONE (Cecil Holmes, 1956) and FOUR FILMS FROM THE CENTRAL AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL MEDIA ASSOCIATION (CAAMA) (1998-2010, Warwick Thornton, Dena Curtis, David Tranter, Danielle MacLean)

Cinema Reborn has announced two major programs of classic Australian film as key parts of its 2021 program screening at the Ritz Cinemas Randwick from 29 April to 2 May.  

Full details of the announced titles (including Destry Rides Again, Aimless Bullet, The Leopard, Filibus and Criss Cross) for the 2021 season can be found  IF YOU CLICK HERE 

 

A LANDMARK IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUSTRALIAN CINEMA

 

For it's Australian component, first off Cinema Reborn will be presenting a rare 35mm screening of Cecil Holmes 1956 classic trilogy THREE IN ONE. The print of the film comes from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

Starting out as an adaptation of a Frank Hardy story, Three in One became three stories; by Hardy, by Rex Rienits (adapting a Henry Lawson classic), and by Ralph Peterson, each with linking introductions by actor John McCallum. All three reflect on aspects of Australian life with a rare, straightforward honesty. Cecil Holmes debut feature revealed a film-maker of great talent, a committed leftist and a champion for social justice. 

Cecil Holmes with actor Sydney Cook during filming of 'I, the Aboriginal' at
Katherine River, Northern Territory, 1962.'
photo Sandra Lebrun Holmes, 'Faces in the Sun' autobiography.
(Copyright Amanda Holmes Tzafrir)

“…full of energy and promise. An honest and determined attempt to create a national style.” – Pike & Cooper, Australian Film 1900-1977

With: Reg Lye, Ben Gabriel, Jerome ‘Jock’ Levy, Leonard Teale, Brian Vicary, Joan Lander, John Fernside, John McCallum

The screening of Three in One is by courtesy of a 35mm print supplied by kind permission of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

Three  In One is presented by courtesy of Amanda Holmes-Tzafrir.

 

Saturday 1 May, 1.15pm (G), 89 minutes

 

For bookings CLICK HERE 

*********************************************** 

The second Australian program will consist of 

FOUR FILMS FROM THE CENTRAL AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL MEDIA ASSOCIATION (CAAMA)

 

Launched in Alice Springs in 1988 as the video unit of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association, CAAMA Productions Pty Ltd is now the largest Indigenous production house in Australia.

Green Bush

Since its inception, CAAMA Productions has played an instrumental role in developing and supporting the careers of many of Australia’s most celebrated Indigenous filmmakers, including Warwick Thornton, Beck Cole, Ivan Sen, Danielle MacLean, Rachel Perkins, Dena Curtis and David Tranter. 

Cinema Reborn will present a selection of four short films to pay homage to the work of CAAMA Productions, and to celebrate the Media Association’s powerful use of film and broadcast media to empower Indigenous voices and sustain Indigenous Language and Culture in Central Australia. The program will include Warwick Thornton’s award-winning short drama, Green Bush(2005), Dena Curtis’ observational documentary, Eight Ladies(2010), Danielle MacLean’s impressionistic drama, My Colour, Your Kind(1998) and David Tranter’s atmospheric documentary, Willaberta Jack(2007). 

GREEN BUSH | 2005 | Dir. Warwick Thornton | 26 mins | Colour | English | 35mm | Drama 

Every night, Indigenous radio announcer and DJ, Kenny hosts the Green Bush show. Isolated at the station, he takes requests for music, while at the same time coping with the pressure of the community around him. Based on his own experiences as a radio DJ in Alice Springs in central Australia, Warwick Thornton made an international impact with this graceful and powerful short drama. (Notes: Ronin Films)

The screening of Green Bush is by courtesy of a 35mm print supplied by kind permission of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

EIGHT LADIES | 2010 | Dir. Dena Curtis | 22min | Colour | Alyawarr [English Subtitles] Documentary from the Nganampa Anwernekenhe series

Eight Ladies follows eight women from Alyawarr Country in the Sandover River region in central Australia on a five-day journey into the bush to hunt echidna and gather bush foods. As the women hunt together and sit around their campfire at night preparing the food, they talk about the old days and how life has changed. Filmed in an observational style, this gentle and reflective film is a moving revelation of the women's sense of relaxed oneness with their Country. (Ronin Films)

MY COLOUR, YOUR KIND| 1998 | Dir. Danielle MacLean | 11min | Colour | 16mm | English | Drama 

In a sequence of simple, emotionally charged scenes, My Colour, Your Kind gives a powerful, impressionistic insight into the feelings of alienation experienced by a teenage albino Aboriginal girl. In a convent boarding school in Alice Springs, she is misunderstood and bullied by a severe, unloving nun. She escapes in dreams and eventually in reality to her mother where she feels at peace. (Ronin Films)

WILLABERTA JACK| 2007 | Dir. David Tranter | 26min | English and Alywarre [English Subtitles] | Documentary 

The short film that was later expanded into a screenplay for award-winning feature film Sweet Country(2017), Willaberta Jack is the extraordinary story of the largest manhunt ever to take place in the Northern Territory.  Set in 1929, Aboriginal man Willaberta Jack runs for his life, pursued by the law of the day. A riveting and atmospheric account of the harshness of outback life and of the perils of being a black man who challenged the white man’s dominance. (CAAMA and Ronin Films.)

Willaberta Jack

Source: Ronin Films

 

4:00PM, Sunday May 02, Randwick Ritz
MA 15+ 85 minutes

 

For bookings CLICK HERE 

TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS TO SUPPORT CINEMA REBORN

CINEMA REBORN is managed and presented entirely an enthusiastic group of volunteers and supporters, presenters and writers. You can assist their work by making a tax-deductible donation OF ANY AMOUNT LARGE OR SMALL via the Australian Cultural Fund. For more information or to make a donation CLICK HERE