Farewell Academy Twin

Originally the West Olympia Theatre, opening its doors in 1911, it has passed through many hands, names and renovations to later become Palace Academy Twin cinemas on Oxford Street in Paddington. Closed in 1972 it was renovated into Sydney's first twin cinema, opening two years later in 1974 with Roman Polanski's MACBETH and FRITZ THE CAT. Screening arthouse and foreign language films, the cinemas also became the home of many loved annual film festivals including the French, Italian and Mardi Gras.

Before the cinema reels stopped spinning midway through last year I snuck in to capture its last moments and here we have invited some of the local industry to comment on what the cinema meant to them.

Clicking the images below will bring up a larger viewer to see the entire series.

Margaret Pomeranz
Australian Film Critic

What's your fondest memory...
Turning up at the Sydney Film Festival premiere of STONE FOREVER.  It was the nicest experiences of that film, everything else was a horror.  Great night, downhill from there on.

Do you remember the first film you saw at The Academy?
Can't remember the first film but I do remember one week of great films that included the Academy Twin - Woody Allen's INTERIORS (at Hoyts I think), COMING HOME (maybe also at Hoyts) and then maybe the creme de la creme Visconti's L'INNOCENTE at the Academy Twin.  is that possible?  I knew that the week held three great different movies.  I remember seeing so many films there in the 70's.

What made it a unique cinema to experience film?
It was always a cinema where you would find people you knew who loved film, and you would meet people who loved film.  That is a rarity.

Why was the Academy important to the Australian film industry?
It drew people who loved international and alternative cinema.  It had an enormously important role to play at a time when Sydney was starved for alternative venues. I remember having Q & A's with Jane Campion at the Academy Twin, with so many Australian filmmakers,I can't remember now how many - and I was only the tip of the iceberg as far as engaging with the Australian film industry.  It was a gorgeous cinema for that engagement with the perfect informed audience.

Do I regret its demise?  How hard can I holler?  Yes I do.

ANDREW MACKIE
Managing Director, TRANSMISSION FILMS

What made it a unique cinema to experience film?
Like Dendy Martin Place it was 'ground zero' for Sydney indie cinema. There are a lot of screens now screening arthouse product, but the Academy had the DNA of years of great programming, a real sense of institution. It's the closest thing we had to an Angelika Film Centre.

Why was the Academy important to the Australian film industry?
It supported Australian cinema. So many great Q&A's. The marketing backed the location up too. And more than a few actors, producers and directors worked there over the years.

Anything else...
I always had those offices mentally earmarked in the event of a nuclear crisis.

RICHARD PAYTEN
Managing Director, TRANSMISSION FILMS

Do you remember the first film you saw at The Academy?
Not sure i can remember the first one but i remember taking my mum to see DELICATESSEN. i loved it and she found it a little challenging.

What made it a unique cinema to experience film?
The location in Paddington really added to the experience.  You also felt it was the home of quality cinema.

Anything else...
it is where I had my successful job interview for Ronin Films 20 years ago.  I remember i rode my pushbike down form the chauvel (where i was working at the time) and met with Andrew Pike in the tiny office space. This was really the beginning of my career in distribution.  Andrew was a partner in the cinema at the stage before buying it outright and then eventually selling to palace. 

PETER CASTALDI
Managing Director, PACK SCREEN
 
What's your fondest memory...
Working there in the late seventies early eighties when Valhalla was a part owner, stumbling over the road with all the queers staff for beers and banter.. and then again whilst I was working as a reviewer on ABC TV. I used to love the double takes of patrons having the face of Film On Review tearing their tickets.

Why was the Academy important to the Australian film industry?
The only place to see the best of English and non-English language indie cinema for years and years. Add to that all the festivals and top it off with Mardis Gras. It was for so long the absolute hub of anything worth seeing on screen in Sydney, and without doubt was responsible for launching the Australian cinema careers of many international indie directors and producers.

Nicholas Whatson
General Manager, PALACE FILMS

What's your fondest memory...
Sitting in cinema 500 at midnight with the other staff, screen-checking brand new prints of films (sometimes a year before release). Or at 7am in the morning before cast and crews, which is how I saw SOMERSAULT and Jonathan Glazer’s BIRTH. Heaven.

Do you remember the first film you saw at The Academy?
Kieslowski’s THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE.   

What made it a unique cinema to experience film?
I don’t think the Academy was any more special than other venues Sydney has seen go (vale the Mandolin!), but the mix of 70’s style and dagginess gave it a completely unique charm. I loved the concrete roof, and was horrified by the hallucinogenic carpet that Palace put down when they first took over from Ronin... yet over time came to love that too.

And the worst film...
The most shiteous films were the ones we rejected to book. There’s nothing quite like a crap Australian production...  So it probably goes to Laurie McInnes’ DOGWATCH.
That said WAH WAH made me want to dig out my eyeballs.

Mathieu Ravier
Artistic Director, The FESTIVALISTS
 
What's your fondest memory...
Meeting Catherine Deneuve briefly before the screening of Gaël Morel’s APRES LUI in 2008. I didn't know she'd be there to introduce the screening and had no time to gather my wits. I think I bumbled like a fool, but I shook Catherine Deneuve's hand in the Academy Twin and really you can't beat that.

What made it a unique cinema to experience film?
In many ways it felt like the last of the inner-city arthouse cinemas, the ones you were proud to call your local, which hadn't been refurbished and modernized to within an inch of their lives. The Academy Twin still looked like what you imagine a cinema should look like, how movie theatres are portrayed in say, films by Woody Allen. It had that rare thing nowadays: a lobby you actually want to hand around in. The curvy leather banquettes, the framed posters, the monumental candy bar, the hand-made film promo collages... everything conspired to make the Academy Twin a temple to good cinema.
 

Why was the Academy important to the Australian film industry?
It was important on several counts, first and foremost as a prestigious screening venue for world cinema. If a foreign film was programmed at the Academy Twin, the message was clear: this is one to watch, this film could be a future classic and deserves your attention. It was also a home for some of Sydney's best festivals, including the French and Italian film festivals and the Mardi Gras Film Festival. It is cinemas such as the Academy Twin which guarantee a certain diversity of storytelling voices, languages and traditions. Every time an arthouse cinema shuts its doors we narrow our options and lock out significant filmmaking nations from the landscape.
 

           The Academy Twin officially closed its doors on the 27th of June 2010.
           The last session was the acclaimed Australian film ANIMAL KINGDOM.

                                  Photography & Design: Jonathan Coucoulas

Film still and quotes from the opening of the post are from Bernardo Bertolucci's THE DREAMERS (2003) ©Fox - Go and search it out! |  A huge thank you to both Palace Cinemas and Films for 
giving us the opportunity to have access to the cinema as well as our industry friends 
Andrew, Richard, Peter, Nic, Matt and Margaret for your fantastic memories and insights. 
Please switch your phone off for the duration of the film.