The Melbourne Salon | Screening France in Australia

This Melbourne Salon will bring together two self-avowed cinéphiles with plenty of academic and industry experience, namely James Hewison, former Executive Director of the Melbourne International Film Festival, and Andrew McGregor, Associate Professor in French Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne, to discuss the impact of French cinema on Australian audiences, critics, filmmakers, actors and crews over more than a century of screenings of French films in Australia.

From the first exhibition of the Lumière brothers’ revolutionary cinématographe at the turn of the twentieth century, through the birth of auteur cinema during the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s, to the continuing popularity of the Alliance Française French Film Festival, the largest French film festival in the world outside France, James and Andrew will discuss some of the key moments in the history of French cinema in Australia, as well as some of the many fascinating collaborations between the French and Australian film industries over the years. They will also explore how France represents itself through film, how the French industry sees itself as a defender of cinema, and what lessons can be learned for the future of the Australian film industry.