To kick off our new column, ‘Beyond the Frame’—in which we speak to film programmers and curators about their integral behind-the-screens labour—we caught up with writer, researcher, and Melbourne Cinémathèque co-curator Eloise Ross. While she awaited the beginning of this year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna, Eloise spoke to us about the surprise and serendipity of programming double features, the thrill of sourcing almost-lost films, the benefits of working as a collective, and more.

Rough Cut: Can you tell us a bit about how you became a curator of film, and how you first came to be involved with the Melbourne Cinémathèque?

Eloise Ross: I have actually been thinking about this just recently, as this year I moved out of Melbourne to Dja Dja Wurrung country and can’t make it to as many screenings as I would like to. It’s been a part of my life for so long now and really means a lot to me. I joined the Melbourne Cinémathèque committee when I was a 21-year-old undergrad in cinema studies at the University of Melbourne and was just about to start my Honours year. I’d been attending screenings a little bit and was amazed that as a member I could see so many films for such a low, affordable cost, compared to the individual ticket prices of other films. That sounds a little bit like I’m advertising, but it’s the truth! 

I’d just come back from a trip to New York where I’d fully immersed myself in a Film Forum retrospective on Otto Preminger, and I wanted to help bring the same thing to Melbourne. A lecturer of mine suggested I present my ideas to the Cinémathèque so I sent an email to express interest in joining, and while it was about five years until there was a Preminger season I like to think that my enthusiasm had even a little something to do with it. I had a lot to learn, though, and I didn’t get involved in the curatorial role until about six years later.

To the first part of your question, I think that if I wasn’t an academic I would like to be an archivist or a film programmer (or, unrelated, a horticulturalist). There’s probably more of a career outlook with the first option, and all of us at the Cinémathèque are volunteers with other jobs anyway, but for me getting involved in this kind of started off selfishly. I thought, how can I get the films up there that I want to see?

RC: Of course, you are also a researcher and a writer on screen culture. I’m wondering how/whether you see these roles interacting with and informing your work as a co-curator at the Cinémathèque?

ER: While at first I often wanted to program things that I’m interested in from a research perspective, like film noir and Hollywood stuff because the foundational knowledge is there, I have also begun finding academic interest in areas and materials that emerge in the Cinémathèque programs through curatorial discussions. I often think about an essay by the great historian Peter von Bagh, ‘To Program is to Write Film History,’ which I first read in a re-published version in Lola journal.  One of the lovely things he writes—although I’m sure I’m simplifying—is that in programming double features, curators can make new and enlightening, but often unexpected, connections and histories.

Writing film history is a vast and continual process. Even on a small scale I’ve noticed that—for instance, Anna Karina fries an egg in both Une femme est une femme (1961) and Anna (1967), the double feature that opened the 2024 season—but it’s true on a larger scale as well. Like, how is a director’s style evident across different years or periods, or what can we learn about a country by seeing two distinct films in such close proximity? Film can tell us so much about life, about people, and place and history. I guess that’s all to say that, of course these things interrelate, and I’m really fortunate that my career, my job, and my ‘hobby’ are all continually overlapping.

RC: What are some of the parameters you have in mind when helping to curate a year’s program at the Cinémathèque? How do you begin to narrow down the possibilities?

ER: Answering your question indirectly, at the moment I’m in Bologna in Italy, awaiting the official beginning of this year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato. It’s my fourth time here, and my first time back since 2019. Many new 35mm and DCP [Digital Cinema Package] restorations are screened here, and while I don’t necessarily come out of it with any specific plans, it’s great to be around so much innovative historical programming, seeing rediscoveries, and getting ideas (however indirect) for our own program in Melbourne.

So, to some extent curating is about seeing what’s out there and trying to bring it into our program. But on another level, it’s much more mundane. We have a long list of programs suggested by members, programs we’ve tried to get together but haven’t eventuated, and things like that. Some of the program ideas are concrete, and some of them are generic, and then we have to make sure each annual program is well-balanced in terms of geography, ethnicity, gender, historical scope, big popular programs versus rarer and more obscure things. Unlike many other organisations, we put together an entire annual program at once so we have to think ahead. 

RC: One of the wonderful benefits of attending the Cinémathèque is seeing films that, even in an era dominated by streaming, can otherwise be very challenging to find, let alone watch on a cinema screen. Is there a film or body of work that has been especially difficult to track down a copy of, and which felt like a particular victory to be able to share?

ER: I absolutely love hearing feedback like that, and I get a real sense that in Melbourne, if not elsewhere, audiences are enjoying stuff in repertory and themed screenings, outside of the confined walls of streaming. Every curator would have their own story, for sure, but there were two instances last year which were real winners for me. One was Peter Bogdanovich’s Squirrels to the Nuts [2014, also known as She’s Funny That Way], his last fiction feature that was taken from him and re-edited by the studio. His version, which was rediscovered and which he worked on again before he died, can only be seen on one DCP at the moment for a variety of reasons. So it was fantastic to screen that.

I was also so thrilled to put the Brazilian 60s program together. We had wanted to do this and I made some enquiries back in 2017 or 2018, but the Cinemateca Brasileira had little funding and it was too difficult to get things confirmed. Then of course in 2021 they had a devastating fire. Thanks to the digitisation and distribution work undertaken by the non-profit organisation Cinelimite, there were enough films available to put together a really solid program and I’m really proud of it. As a story with an alternative ending, though, I have been so determined to screen more Joan Micklin Silver films and just haven’t had much luck. But the Academy Museum has just screened a 35mm print of Crossing Delancey (1988) so maybe there’s some hope left.

RC: Can you describe the process of curating as a collective? Why is working as a committee important—and how are roles divided between you?

ER: At the moment there are five curators who take on the bulk of the curating work: Michael Koller, Cerise Howard, Adrian Danks, Andréas Giannopoulos, and myself. There’s also a committee of about 20 members who help out with the broader operations. In terms of getting the annual programs together, we have a general idea of what’s been done in the past and what’s going on around the world, but we meet with the larger committee and then work to select programs and films, hunt down rights clearances, find prints of the films. We tend to know what each others’ strengths are and can kind of follow our paths that way, or if we nominate we are particularly interested in or knowledgeable about an area we go with that. In other instances we will divide seasons or specific tasks amongst ourselves, depending on who has the time or the contacts. But there’s definitely a benefit to the committee element, and the discussion of the whole scope.

RC: Do you have a favourite season that you’ve contributed to curating at the Cinémathèque?

ER: I’m sure this will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, but the Barbara Stanwyck season—I’m obsessed with her—in 2016 will probably always be my favourite. It was one of the first that I got to properly work on, and it was such a pleasure. I found a real thrill in liaising with staff at the Academy Film Archive, with NBC Universal, with UCLA, selecting a range of her films that showed off her different talents. It was all so exciting to me, not only getting a chance to engage with the world of archives and prints and film programming, but to involve my favourite actress and then sit with audiences who also fell in love with her or made new discoveries. 

RC: Is there one that you are most looking forward to in the remainder of the 2024 program? 

ER: I can’t go past an Ernst Lubitsch night! We’ve been anticipating MoMA’s new restoration (worked on with the Film Foundation) of Forbidden Paradise (1924), and it’s finally available this year. It’s screening with two other Lubitsch silents on November 27. 

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The Melbourne Cinémathèque screens films on Wednesdays at ACMI in Federation Square. Screenings are presented in partnership with ACMI, and supported by VicScreen.

Full program and membership options—including discounted membership options for students—are available at acmi.net.au/cteq.

Support the Cinémathèque’s 2025 Screening Program by making a tax deductible donation through the Australian Cultural Fund.