Choc-tops and Cassata - Part 1: How multicultural movies saved the Melbourne cinema scene

Italian film nights in 1950's -1970's Melbourne were an excuse for a multigenerational night out. Movie screenings brought places, faces and voices from the old country to a hungry audience. But they also helped save some of Melbourne’s favourite suburban cinemas from demolition.

In this series, Choc-tops and Cassata, part of The Secret Life of Language, hosts Elisabetta Ferrari (Italian Studies Program) and Mark Nicholls (Screen and Cultural Studies) are joined by comedian, writer and producer Santo Cilauro to dig into the ways Italian language films shaped the cultural life of Melbourne.

In this episode, we speak with Gus Berger, cinema owner-operator and producer of the documentary The Lost City of Melbourne. Gus explains how suburban cinemas fit into the big pictur ...