My curatorial swansong - this week at Cinematheque

Yes folks, you read it right, my time as curator at the Chauvel Cinematheque has come to an end. On the 5th of February I received an email from the manager of the Chauvel Cinema stating that my services programming cinematheque would no longer be required. I knew the writing was on the wall when the Saturday screenings were canned a few months back and replaced with sessions of Madagascar 2, but it was still a shock.

A Cinematheque will continue at the Chauvel, but the programming will now be done in-house. You'll now have to go to the Chauvel website to find out what's on.

After more than two and a half years and close to 300 shows, I still felt I had more to give, in fact I felt I was just starting to find some real momentum, with some exciting new film suppliers in the wings, a growing active membership and growing input from the members.

The good news is that my tenure as the curator of the Cinematheque will go out with a bang. The last show is on at 6:30 March the 2nd and is the last part in a month long look at the phenomenon of multi-screen movies, or movies that use multiple projectors.

The ultimate night comprises a double feature of multi-screen works by local arts/music experimentalists The Stud and Track Recording Company. The first is a retooling of a 1999 show performed live at the Side On Cafe in Sydney called Idaho Transfer. This show uses a captioned-for-the-deaf print of Peter Fonda's bizarre 1973 science fiction film (above), projected in a twin screen format and given a new, improvised, lo-fi, psychedelic, garage-rock soundtrack by the Stud and Track House Band. The music was recorded at a rehearsal for the show in 1999 and will be remixed live on the night by Brad Maiden.

The second half of the show is a new work, Journey to the Seventh Planet, devised especially for this show. It features a twin screen presentation of the Z-grade Danish science fiction film, a kind of poor man's Solaris, with a new soundtrack that combines elements of the film's original soundtrack, with ambient, electronic and experimental music.

Both shows will showcase the amazing power and fidelity of Lenard Audio's Cinesthesia sound system.

I've always dreamed of filling the main Chauvel cinema and this is my last chance, so if you've enjoyed cinematheque in the past, please come and say hello... and goodbye. Hope to see you there.

I have enjoyed my tenure as the curator of the cinematheque and thank Chauvel and Palace Cinemas for giving me the opportunity in the first place. I will take some time out to renovate the home, concentrate on my University studies, and look after my (soon-to-be) two kids. Hopefully, I can get something else together sometime later in the year. The wheels are already turning. I have a giant backlog of material that was meant for this blog, so I will be updating it regularly. Thanks to all the members past and present.