Film group fights on for big-screen experience

IF you believe ANU Film Group sponsorship officer Brett Yeats – and he’s pretty persuasive – you’d be mad not to join the 57-year-old society which started in 1966 and is still going strong.

Yeats, a well-known local businessman, has been using his “retirement” to help boost the profile of the group, which suffered in the wake of the pandemic as film lovers deserted cinemas in droves. 

It’s very true, he tells me, that the film group has been through its ups and downs over the years, first because of video rentals and now through home theatre and streaming.

But he’s adamant there’s nothing like viewing a movie on a proper, big screen, saying: “There’s nothing quite like laughing, crying or screaming with a room full of strangers at what’s unfolding on the big screen.”

The organisation, which between February and April screened no fewer than 49 films, aims to show the very newest releases. Over three days in February it screened “The Lost King”, Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” and “The Night of the 12th”, with the 1933 “King Kong” thrown in for historical light relief. 

“As a film society, we don’t sell tickets to our films, we screen for members and their guests,” Yeats says, and bearing in mind its origins as a campus-based organisation, though these days anyone can join, they like to take on more thought-provoking movies as well.

In late March, for instance, it hosted a screening of Edward Berger’s “All Quiet On The Western Front”, introduced by the German ambassador, days after it won seven BAFTAs. 

Then in mid-April, it partnered with the Law Reform and Social Justice School at the ANU to show Larissa Behrendt’s film “You Can Go Now”, about First Nations artist-provocateur Richard Bell. 

Keeping up with the times and with Australia’s changing demography, there was “You Won’t Be Alone” from North Macedonia, Australia’s entrant in this year’s Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars.

According to ANU Film Group president, Adrian Ma, the group wants to “to celebrate/showcase films that aren’t always easy to find on the big screen, in addition to also screening all of the ‘popular’ films.” 

To that end, coming up as part of a Reconciliation Week mini-festival, June 1-3, are “Countryman”, which has never been shown in Canberra, followed by “We Are Still Here” and “Wash My Soul in the River’s Flow”, which have had only very limited screenings.

The coming winter season follows the usual pattern of mixing popular with thoughtful movies, so we’ll soon see “Creed III”, another “Rocky” spin-off where Michael B Jordan makes his directorial debut, “Love in the Time of Revolution”, set in the midst of protests in Hong Kong and Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light”, in which poor Hilary (Olivia Colman) lives in a British seaside town where her only entertainment is having boring sex with her boss (Colin Firth).

While times have been tough, Yeats believes their efforts are paying off, helped by the fact that ANU assigned them a state-of-the-art movie theatre in its Kambri cultural precinct for which they don’t pay.

This is probably why they’re able to offer members of the public exceptional deals, beginning with a weekly membership at $15 and culminating in their gold standard annual membership, which covers four seasons and around 200 films, for $90.

Yeats and Ma are true believers in the power of film, but they’re not the only ones. Andrew Pike was one of the founders of the group in 1966 and then in 1969 Yeats, then an economics fresher at the ANU, joined, left to go interstate, re-joined in 1997 then got on to the committee in 2010, making this his 13th year.

In its heyday, it had more than 2000 members, who crammed into the Coombs Theatre at the ANU, which was equipped with a good digital projector. 

No complaints there, but with the advent of Kambri’s more sophisticated venue, the committee seized the opportunity to draw in a different demographic – Canberra’s diplomats, ever keen to have Australian people watching their nations’ movies.

The ANU Film Group, after first arranging giveaways through some of the embassies, soon saw an increase in memberships and an expansion in the range of movies available to them.

For instance, after the screening of a Belgian film, to which tickets had been given away, the then ambassador asked: “How can we show more Belgian films?” 

Other embassies followed and now 61 different embassies have been responsible for the screening of 300 films. 

ANU Film Group membership details and the winter program are available at anufg.org.au