The Arc cinema program's end is imminent. But its program manager, Quentin Turnour, has arranged a special day to celebrate an icon of cinema. This year is the 100th anniversary of Charlie Chaplin's first screen appearance as the Tramp – in the Keystone film Kid Auto Races at Venice – and Mr Turnour has organised a program of screenings of restored early Chaplin films, Chaplin documentaries and a discussion about his legacy. As part of the celebration, he has invited some of the musicians who have accompanied Arc screenings of silent films and some new talents.
Mr Turnour described Chaplin – who by 1916 was making $600,000 a year – as "the first global movie star", a man who was feted by everyone from Winston Churchill to Albert Einstein and was regarded as one of cinema's true artists.
Chaplinitis at the National Film and Sound Archive on Saturday will begin at 1.30pm with a session for families (tickets $10/$8) during which pianist Mauro Colombis will accompany the films The New Janitor and The Floorwalker. A Dog's Life will screen with Chaplin's own symphonic score.
There will be free documentaries screening throughout the day and, at 5pm, a free panel discussion, followed at 7.30pm ($35/$25. includes a glass of champagne) by a screening of five films including 1AM (1916) accompanied by D'Opus, Roshambo and MC Hau Latukefu; and Luke Sweeting's Gypsy manouche playing for The Immigrant (1917).
While budget cuts have led to the closure of the program – although its Friday Silver Screenings seniors program will continue until October – Mr Turnour was proud of what he had achieved in the past seven years at the specially-built Arc cinema.
"We tried to showcase the art of cinema," he said.
He estimated he had programmed 250 to 300 sessions a year, ranging across cinema's past and present and sourced both from the archive's collection and from overseas, giving Canberrans rare opportunities to see many films otherwise difficult or impossible to find.
Among the highlights, he said, were the Spring Silent seasons of silent movies – uniquely in Australia, they were projected on film, not digitally – as well as programs of south-east Asian, Latin American, Middle Eastern and African films.
He was proud to highlight the work of Australian filmmakers including Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah) and had fun with such events as a season of films set in Australia but made internationally, such as the 1934 Hollywood movie Stingaree and the 1937 German film To A Distant Shore, providing interesting perspectives on how other cultures viewed and interpreted this country.
Along with a select few other venues, such as the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, he said: "We seemed able to offer something quite rare in Australia."
Now the Arc Cinema's future is uncertain – is it "to be continued" or "the end"?
Chaplinitis is on at the National Film and Sound Archive on Saturday, August 30 from 1.30pm. For more information, visit nfsa.gov.au
