World Movies Secret Cinema – October 2013

Overview

With the pervasiveness of downloads and streaming these days, it's easy for the full extent of your movie viewing to end up taking place on the couch. So it's nice to be reminded every now and again of what it's like for cinema to be a special and communal experience through events such as World Movies Secret Cinema.

The film, genre, and location are all kept secret until the last moment in these events, which tap into an international trend to package cinema as an active experience rather than a passive diversion, immersing the audience through elaborate venue theming. The first instalment of the event, held in May, got us so excited that it sold out within an hour of tickets going on sale. The next will take things up a notch further with a mystery form of transport involved in getting to the venue.

The last World Movies Secret Cinema transformed the Standard on Taylor Square into an illicit nightclub where a bride in white wedding dress loitered portentously and young partygoers were hounded by gruff cops. It truly got you in the mood for Circumstance, a punchy new Iranian film by Maryam Keshavarz most of us would otherwise have missed and which also largely took place at squashy clubs as young people grappled with sexuality and drugs.

In a typically Sydney touch, the theatre was eclipsed by the food, which included every type of Persian canape imaginable as we sat in the bar and baklava to munch on during the movie. (Though the addition of the ever-popular Festivalists to the team should up the immersiveness of the production details this time around.)

Tickets to World Movies Secret Cinema go on sale on Monday, October 8, at 9am.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=CwaId0j5E_E