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Grab a blanket and a beverage and take in a film under the night
sky this summer. Katrina Lobley finds a nice spot.
This summer, Sydney is going outdoor-movie mad.
Firstly, Moonlight Cinema has extended its season, stretching the
concept of summer by opening this week and lingering on into March.
That's 81 nights of movies under the trees and the fruit bats of
Centennial Park.
OpenAir Cinema at the Royal Botanic Gardens doesn't
have quite the same luxury to sprawl out over the calendar - it's
hemmed in on one side by New Year's Eve celebrations and on the
other by Mardi Gras events. Nevertheless, it has scheduled an extra
four nights and will screen 38 films during its season.
Then there's the new kid on the block: Starlight
Cinema at North Sydney Oval. When the cricketers pack up for the
day, an inflatable 16-metre by eight-metre screen will be erected
in the centre of the historic oval.
Starlight Cinema's producer, Jill Keyte, helped
to program live entertainment during the Sydney Olympics. She says
she imported the screen from Germany because nothing can be built
on the pitch.
It won't be the first time that movies will have
been seen at North Sydney Oval. Keyte says her research has revealed
that a group of opticians screened at least one season of films
in 1909.
"North Sydney City Council has been interested
in outdoor cinema for some time and hasn't been successful in establishing
it before," she says. "Then we got together and it's just
a perfect arrangement. I think it'll be a stunning venue."
Perhaps, but it's up against two of the most dazzling
outdoor cinema settings in Australia. The operator of the Moonlight
and OpenAir venues aren't the least bit worried about Starlight's
arrival on the scene.
OpenAir Cinema's general manager, Rob Bryant,
says: "The location that we have is without parallel, possibly
in the world. It's an expensive undertaking, but it produces a product
that really doesn't have an immediate competitor."
OpenAir's audience is typically professional and
aged 25 to 44. Tourists comprise 10 per cent, while women outnumber
men two to one.
Moonlight co-founder James Tutton says: "Certainly
there's an audience on the North Shore. There's no harm in doing
it. I think there's enough of an audience [to go around]."
At the Moonlight arena, there has been a move
away from the classics to include a lot more new-release material,
such as Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Sunday and December 19),
Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (January 4, February 5) and Jane Campion's
In The Cut (December 21, January 17).
However, new prints of old classics have created
some surprising choices on the roster: Jaws has earned itself three
screenings (December 4, January 8, February 6) and Caddyshack two
(December 24, January 27).
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