Italian Cinemas in Melbourne: From Post War Migration to "The Movie Show"

Join our panel of film makers, historians and Italian cinema devotees as they launch this exciting new project and its major initiatives, the Italian Cinemas in Melbourne Podcast & An Exhibition of Italian Cinema Posters and Artefacts (1948-1979) from the personal collections of Santo Cilauro & Carlo Zeccola. This event introduces the project and will give a sneak preview of some of the Italian cinema posters from the exhibition. Most importantly the launch will include a Q&A session in which we invite you to share your memories of attending local Italian cinemas up to the 1970s and watching Italian films across Melbourne screens big and small. We look forward to welcoming you and encouraging you to take part in this fascinating project. Come and share a little wine and a lot of nostalgia, reimagining our common Melbourne film heritage which has played such an important part in all our lives. This project aims to provide a comprehensive overview of ways in which Italian language cinemas contributed to the reception and distribution of Italian cinema in Melbourne from the post-WWII mass migration period until the advent of SBS in the late 1970s. For a great number of migrants, Italian language cinemas represented an important way to connect to their cultural heritage while also providing significant social and recreational opportunities. In the pre-SBS period various Melbourne cinemas and improvised screening spaces were dedicated to screening films exclusively in Italian. Consequently, the Italian language cinemas contributed significantly to reinforcing the developing multiculturalism in Melbourne.