Matinees

Celebrate cinema at a sensible hour with our thoughtfully curated line-up of films from Australia and around the world.

Melburnians love to spend winter in the cinema.

Join us as we kick off the Winter season with the new 4K restoration of Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday starring a dapper Cary Grant opposite a whip-smart, fast-talking Rosalind Russell. It’s one of the great screwball comedies and is believed to hold the record for the fastest dialogue of all time at 240 words per minute. You might need a hot coffee in hand to keep up.

From there, we go back (or forward) to 1989 with Steven Soderbergh’s Palme d’Or-winning directorial debut film Sex, Lies, and Videotape. The film has been specially selected to screen alongside our Focus on Miranda July and is one of the major influences on her career.

The remainder of our Winter Matinees program speaks to cross-cultural influence, inspiration and collaboration. Canadian director Matthew Rankin imagines his Winnipeg as a city that has soaked up the Iranian New Wave in his surreal comedy Universal Language. Australian director Sally Aitken documents the secret lives of hummingbirds in the Hollywood Hills in her Los Angeles-set film Every Little Thing. American master of the observational documentary Frederick Wiseman delves into the inner workings of one of the world's great dance companies in La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet which we’re screening on 35mm film. And if that doesn't cross enough borders for you, Portuguese director Miguel Gomes invites us to join his Grand Tour.

Matinee sessions run every Friday, Saturday and Sunday with new films beginning every fortnight.

- Reece Goodwin, Curator (Film & TV)