Four nights of 80s and 90s classics land in the inner west as Footscray Flix revives the suburb's lost cinema history.
Footscray Flix is turning a Moreland Street lot into a 100-seat cinema for four nights of 80s and 90s classics.
The season is a love letter to Footscray’s ghost cinemas. Up until the late 1980s the suburb was the west’s cinema heartland, once dubbed the St Kilda of the north for its night-time buzz, even as it was often written off as the area’s Cinderella suburb. Four theatres – La Scala, Trocadero, the Grand and Barkly – sat within 500m of each other, and the last of them went dark in 1987. Footscray Flix picks up that thread.
Footscray Flix
- 27 August, Footscray Flix pop-up cinema, 34 Moreland Street, Footscray, VIC
- 28 August, Footscray Flix pop-up cinema, 34 Moreland Street, Footscray, VIC
- 29 August, Footscray Flix pop-up cinema, 34 Moreland Street, Footscray, VIC
- 30 August, Footscray Flix pop-up cinema, 34 Moreland Street, Footscray, VIC
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Inside, audiences step into a custom-built boutique cinema kitted out with red-carpeted floors and comfy seats, a callback to the days when a night at the pictures was a proper event. Seating is unallocated on a first-in, best-dressed basis, and the room is wheelchair accessible. Programming leans on the west, opening with The Big Steal, shot in Footscray, and Mad Max, which used locations across the western suburbs.
From there the run takes in a Slackers Night of Dazed and Confused and Trainspotting, a sci-fi triple bill of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Alien and Blade Runner, and a Patrick Swayze double of Dirty Dancing and Point Break. DJs spin film-inspired soundtracks once each screening wraps, and opening night bundles in free pizza, a drink and a DJ set with the ticket.
Barbarian Brewing keeps the taps running across all four nights, and nearby haunts including Harry+Larry’s General Store, Slice Girls West, Conway Fish Trading and Back Alley Sally’s are set up for a feed or a cocktail before the lights drop. Seats start at $7 and top out at $12, with opening night priced between $25 and $30 before booking fees. The whole run sits under the council’s wider Footscray Revitalisation program, part of a broader push to pull people back into the heart of the suburb.
For more information, head here.
