World Movies Secret Cinema Sneaks into Melbourne

We download movies onto tiny laptop screens and watch them hunched over in our beds, spilling Red Bull on the keyboard when Ryan Gosling says sexy things like 'Hey' and switching over to check Gmail when he's not onscreen. It's sad, it's solitary, and the suspension of disbelief is, at most, fleeting. What happened to the glory days of yore, when moviegoing was an event? When you were truly transported?

Sensing the aching pit in your soul, on Sunday, May 5, World Movies is bringing its popular Secret Cinema event to a mystery CBD location in Melbourne. You don't know what film you'll be seeing, and the location is revealed by text the day of the screening.

Like Punch Drunk theatre company's large-scale immersive productions in London and New York, where audiences wander through dark rooms wearing masks and are accosted by actors, the Secret Cinema initiative pushes a traditional medium into a new level of experiential entertainment. Live performance as well as themed food and drinks tie in with the world of the film. Examples of performative screenings from overseas have included London's 2010 version which re-created LA's Chinatown in 2019 for Bladerunner (two actors dangled from the ceiling during the climactic 'tears in rain' scene) and a 1950s Algerian casbah for The Battle of Algiers.

In Sydney, Secret Cinema moviegoers were conveyed by ferry to Goat Island and subjected to a series of 'survival games' before seeing Japan's cult classic Battle Royale, forerunner of The Hunger Games. That event sold out in 15 minutes and drew a crowd of hundreds. What type of venue theming will be possible in Melbourne? The possibilities are quite endless. Tickets are $30 and go on sale at 9am on April 22. More info is available on World Movies' Facebook page.