CINEMA REBORN UPDATE - SESSIONS ON THE BIGGEST SCREEN - AUSTRALIAN CLASSICS

ON THE BIG SCREEN AT THE RITZ

 

Most of Cinema Reborn’s screenings will take place in the Ritz’s Cinema 5. It has over 200 seats and includes a stalls and a balcony section. It offers excellent viewing.

 

However, three sessions of our 2024 season will be screened in the Ritz’s pride of place the 700 seat Cinema 1 with its huge screen and excellent sightlines both upstairs in the balcony section and downstairs in the stalls.

 

The three sessions in Cinema 1 are:

 

MIDNIGHT 7.00 PM ON WEDNESDAY 1 MAY.

 

Our opening program (regular ticket prices) is the World Premiere of Mitchell Leisen’s classic 1939 screwball comedy starring Claudette Colbert, John Barrymore and Don Ameche. “One of the liveliest, gayest, wittiest and naughtiest comedies of a long hard season” wrote Frank Nugent in the New York Times way back in 1939. To that you can add David Thomson just a year or so ago who said “yes it’s a great script (by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett) but it’s a great script rendered with terrific feeling and panache (by Mitchell Leisen). 

 

Bookings for this session at this link

 

DAYS OF HEAVEN 8.15 PM ON MONDAY 6 MAY

 

Terrence Malick’s 1978 story of migrant workers fleeing west in 1915 has been called by Michel Ciment of Positif  ‘one of the most original, complex films in the contemporary cinema”.  Those who have seen the 4K restoration are still marvelling at the extraordinary qualities of Nestor Almendros’s Oscar-winning golden hour photography.

 

Bookings for this session at this link

 

LE SAMOURAI 8.15 PM ON TUESDAY 7 MAY

 

John Woo is one of many directors in awe of this film. He called it “the closest to a perfect movie I have ever seen.”  It has taken Cinema Reborn several years of asking before we finally got the rights to screen the superb 4K restoration. Seeing it on the biggest screen possible will be a fitting finale to our 2024 season.

 

Bookings for this session at this link

 

A FINAL SHOUT OUT FOR OUR AUSTRALIAN CINEMA SELECTION FOR 2024.

 

All told we are screening four Australian programs – two classic documentaries LIGHT YEARS from 1991, Kathryn Millard’s superb portrait of the great photographer Olive Cotton (above), a session which will include a post-film conversation and Q&A with Kathryn and eminent photographer Sandy Edwards at the session at 2.30 pm on Sunday 5 May. The second doco is Peter Tammer’s JOURNEY TO THE END OF NIGHT, from 1982 described by Phillip Adams as “vivid as any chronicle of war you will ever see”.  Melbourne film-maker Philip Brophy will be introducing the film at 4.45 pm on Friday 3 May.

 

Then we have two rather divergent titles from the national film heritage. First up is the World Premiere of the restoration of THREE TO GO a remarkable portmanteau from 1971 of three short films by then young directors Peter Weir, Oliver Howes and Brian Hannant. Also screening is an early short by Peter Weir 3 DIRECTIONS IN AUSTRALIAN POP MUSIC. Both films have been preserved by the National Archives of Australia. Richard Brennan who worked as Production Manager on THREE TO GO will do the introduction

 

Finally there is the cult classic and maybe the most overlooked Australian movie of the 90s BODY MELT, Quentin Tarantino’s favourite Oz movie of the time. BODY MELT is having its first screening in Sydney in over 30 years, in our first Friday Night Fright slot. Director Philip Brophy is coming up from Melbourne especially for the screening and will introduce the film along with scholar, critic and cinephile Jane Mills.

 

Click on the film titles to go through to the Ritz booking page or just roll up at the door.

 

AND IN THE MEANTIME

The Cinema Reborn 2024 page on the website of the Australian Cultural Fund enables our supporters to make a tax-deductible donation. All donations great and small are very welcome. The Australian Cultural Fund page can be found If You Click Here

CINEMA REBORN ANNOUNCES ITS 2024 PROGRAM AT THE RANDWICK RITZ AND HAWTHORN LIDO

 

For its sixth edition, Cinema Reborn will screen 17 classics on the big screen at Ritz Cinemas in Randwick (1-7 May) and Lido Cinemas in Hawthorn (9-14 May). It will be the first time that Cinema Reborn’s program will be presented in Melbourne after five seasons in Sydney, where its audience has grown every year. 

 

Since 2019, when Cinema Reborn was first presented at the Ritz Cinemas Randwick, a tremendously supportive relationship has developed between the Ritz Cinema’s management and staff and the remarkable team of film-makers, critics, archivists, scholars and cinephiles who devote themselves to presenting Sydney’s annual season of restored classics. The expansion to the Ritz’s sister cinema in Melbourne, the Hawthorn Lido, is a natural outcome of the audience growth in Sydney and the clear interest to bring Cinema Reborn’s program to a new audience in Australia’s second largest city.

 

On behalf of Lido and Ritz Cinemas, Head of Marketing Jaymes Durante said, “It has been a privilege to help present Cinema Reborn at the Ritz over the years, and it brings us immense pride to bring the festival to Melbourne for the first time in 2024. Through Cinema Reborn, our audiences will be treated to a world-class offering of important restorations and rarely screened cinema treasures which will enrich our city’s cultural offering and will surely become a milestone event in the annual film calendar.”

 

The vast majority of Cinema Reborn’s films are restored in 4K Ultra High Definition, the current pinnacle for film restoration. This year’s selection comes from Italy, France, the UK, USA, Mali, India, Syria, South Korea, Belgium and Australia.

Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)

International classics include Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967); The Golden Coach (Jean Renoir, 1952); La Captive (Chantal Akerman, 2000); I Know Where I’m Going! (Powell/Pressburger, 1947) and Il Grido (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1957).

 

From Hollywood, Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959); Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978); and The Suspect (Robert Siodmak, 1944).

 

There are two World Premiere restorations at Cinema Reborn 2024: Midnight (Mitchell Leisen, 1939),and Australia’s own Three to Go (Brian Hannant, Oliver Howes, Peter Weir, 1971).

 

Also from Australia, Body Melt (Philip Brophy, 1993); Journey to the End of Night (Peter Tammer, 1982) and Light Years (Kathryn Millard, 1991).

 

 

Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)

From South Korea, Sopyonje (Im Kwon-taek, 1993); from Syria, The Dupes (Tewfik Saleh, 1972); from Mali, Yeelen (Souleymane Cissé, 1987); and from India, Ishanou (Aribam Syam Sharma, 1991).

Yeelen (Souleymane Cissé, 1987)

For more information 

Cinema Reborn's website already contains a set of pungent and insightful short notes on the entire program. Over the next few weeks, the website will publish essays on each of our 2024 titles, written by some of Australia’s best known film scholars, critics and cinephiles. As well, a number have been written by highly regarded international critics and commentators. Bookmark https://cinemareborn.com.au and keep checking for newly-posted pages on each of our titles. Regular news updates will be posted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

 

Information about Cinema Reborn’s program is also now available in a 16-page booklet free on the shelves of the Ritz Cinemas Randwick and the Lido Cinemas Hawthorn. 

 

Venues

The Ritz Cinemas’ and Lido Cinemas’ websites each contain pages devoted to Cinema Reborn, with comprehensive notes on each film we are screening and ticketing links. 

 

Admission Prices

Cinema Reborn charges standard cinema ticket prices for all sessions, including opening and closing night selections. Ritz and Lido Movie Club Members are eligible for member’s discount. Details of Club membership and the concessions on offer are at the Ritz Club Membership Page and at the Lido Club Membership Page

 

Bookings Now Open

To make a booking at the Ritz Click here and to make a booking at the Lido Click here.

 

CHARITABLE DONATIONS

Cinema Reborn’s work over the years has long been sustained by the generosity of our donors who help us make up the shortfall between our income and the costs of obtaining and screening our program. The Cinema Reborn 2024 page on the website of the Australian Cultural Fund enables our supporters to make a tax-deductible donation. All donations great and small are very welcome. The Australian Cultural Fund page can be found If You Click Here