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22/8/1896: Australia's First Screening
‘The Greatest Wonder of the NINETEENTH CENTURY’, ‘The Photo. Electric Sensation of the Day’, ‘Impossible to realise that the figures are not ACTUALLY LIVING’.
With such typical words of enthusiasm was cinema heralded when it made its debut in Australia. Its inaugural screening took place on the 22nd August 1896 at the Melbourne Opera House in Bourke Street (a private screening had been given to an invited audience at the theatre on the 17th) and was presented by Carl Hertz (Louis [or Lieb] Morgenstein), a world-famous illusionist of the day. The films, which were screened as part of Hertz’s act (“a conflux of apparent miracles and marvellous illusions”), included Highland Dances, Street Scenes in London, Trilby Dance, Military Parade and the famous Soldier's Courtship.
Although Hertz confusingly advertised his projector as “the great London sensation, the Cinematographe” it was actually one of R. W. Paul’s Theatrographs, which Hertz had purchased (although some sources claim ‘practically’ stolen) in England.
Meanwhile, Maurice Sestier, the Lumieres' agent in India, ran into one Walter Barnett, an Australian portrait photographer, in Bombay and decided, with the brothers' approval, to pay a visit to Barnett’s homeland. Sestier arrived in Sydney in September and, after forming a partnership with Barnett, immediately began filming scenes of Sydney harbour and daily street life in the city, but faulty processing ruined the film. Undeterred by this setback, Barnett solved the problem by constructing a ‘rack and tank’ system of negative development. Sestier and Barnett then opened the country’s first cinema, the Salon Lumiere, at 237 Pitt Street in Sydney, and their first film, Passengers Alighting from Ferry ‘Brighton’ at Manly premiered on the 27th October 1896.. Four days later, the pair travelled to Melbourne to film the AJC Derby at Flemington and, a week later, the Melbourne cup, which, after being discovered in the French Cinematheque in the ‘50s, remains the oldest extant Australian film. 102 years later, in May 1998, the camera they used to shoot the race, a Lumiere Cinematographe, fetched A$18,400 at auction in Melbourne. [ADD]
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