Gus Berger is the director & producer of this film.
Gus is a Melbourne based filmmaker and owner/operator of two cinema companies; the pop-up Blow Up Cinema, and Thornbury Picture House, a lively independent art-house venue.
When both of these businesses were forced to close as part of the Victorian lockdowns – Gus started to formulate a film on his city that was in a whole world of pain. Empty streets and shuttered shops. Closed schools & full hospitals. He started to look at what Melbourne was like during its boom years and was not only amazed at the pioneering and enterprising people that shaped the city at the end of the 19th century but was also shocked by the size & beauty of some of its buildings – buildings that are sadly no longer with us.
He wondered what happened to the glorious cinemas that were on every street corner and why the grand hotels that hosted Mark Twain & Agatha Christie were no longer standing. What happened in Melbourne in the mid 1950s that brought them all down?
So began a project of trawling through online photographs at the State Library of Victoria, watching old film within the NFSA archives, reading books on Melbourne history and conducting interviews with experts on Melbourne in his cinema foyer between lockdowns.
As Melbourne slowly emerged from its multiple lockdowns and Gus’ cinema was allowed to re-open, a feature documentary called The Lost City of Melbourne was born.
It’s a story of Marvellous Melbourne… before Whelan the Wrecker was here.
Some articles about the film..
Australian Design Review 27/10/2022