For most independent cinemas, the challenge is balance. You can’t just show the small, independent films that you love, because it is the big releases that attract audiences and keep the cinema running. At the same time, you don’t want only to show popular, marquee films, because that would make you no different from any big cinema franchise.

Owner Gus Berger is reposnsible for finding this balance at Thornbury Picture House, a tiny hub for film lovers in the northern suburbs. After a stint at London’s DocHouse, a cinema dedicated to documentaries, he returned to Australia and bought a vintage furniture shop in an old deco building in Thornbury. The building had once been one of the first drive-through petrol stations in Melbourne. Berger built a small bar there, put in a cinema screen and decorated it in a cosy, old-fashioned way and opened his doors in 2017.

This is not the only single-screen cinema in Melbourne. The Astor Theatre in St. Kilda is a large, retro-style building that’s been standing there since the 1930s. However, it mostly focuses on cinema classics.

“No one’s doing it like we’re doing it,” Berger tells upstart. “Like a small, intimate, boutique cinema and bar.”

Unfortunately, one challenge with a small space is that there is only room for one screen. This poses several programming challenges.

“It does force you into being quite creative,” Berger says. “And it does force you into planning ahead.”

“I envy those cinemas with 15 screens. They could just take everything. And it’s more about what they don’t take than what they do take. But for us, we’ve got to be very selective.”

The theatre tries to program a diverse range of movies. For example, within one week, the single screen showed Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster Sinners, a documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and a small Australian feature Tinā, about a Samoan teacher struggling after the death of her daughter.

Mathew Howship-Burness, manager of the picture house, does much of the organisational work there. He tells upstart that there is a mix of factors that go into how films are selected—and how they garner appeal.

“Some films people want to see straight away, other films people don’t even hear about and rely on word of mouth,” he says. “So, we just have to try and figure out what people are going to do.”

And curation is never as easy as just picking and choosing what you want to show. As Howship-Burness points out, it’s also a question of what’s available. Even to show old movies, you need to get approval for it from people holding copyrights and with the new releases, you also must follow the schedule.

“Basically, we’re dictated by the release schedule in our country,” he says.

Berger plans screenings weeks ahead. This allows him to prepare everything in advance. But if a film over-performs, he can’t just pop five more screenings in to meet demand, because the schedule is already completed well in advance, in what he calls a constant “game of Tetris”. To give a sense of how much forward planning is required, Berger is already looking ahead to the August releases.

With new independent films, Berger tries to watch them all first to ensure the films are good. But he can’t watch everything. His faith in prominent directors whose films premiere at Cannes and other world-renowned film festivals helps in this regard.

“I guess that people like Christopher Nolan and Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson and Sofia Coppola, and there are some filmmakers that you just can trust,” he says. “And people want to see them anyway.”

Howship-Burness describes the principle of choosing a film in simple terms.

“If the film’s good, then we’re going to play it,” he says.

Getting into the cinema business is not easy. The challenges lie not just in buying all the equipment, but also in obtaining the licence and being digital cinema initiatives (DCI) compliant. This ensures that your equipment is compliant with Hollywood standards and allows you to show the films from big studios like Disney, Universal and Sony.

“Once you do get there and once you are established as a cinema that’s DCI compliant, then you just get accounts with the distributors and you can show their films,” Berger says.

He also admits he doesn’t mind that the barriers to starting a cinema are high.

“If it was really easy to set up a cinema and to get the gear and to get the licences and all that sort of stuff, then there’d probably be loads of us in Melbourne,” he says.

Berger also describes the steep learning curve involved in running a film venue.

“I had to work hard to learn the ropes and to do my apprenticeship and understand how the whole industry works before I got to this position of having my own cinema.”

For independent cinemas, it’s not only about showing new releases. They also usually provide a chance to watch a favourite old movie on a big screen. In a few weeks, the cinema will show 2001: A Space Odyssey and Battleship Potemkin. Sometimes they hold screenings of Hitchcock, Fellini, and other world-famous directors of the past.

“We’ll do, like, you know, maybe six Western films in the middle of the year over winter, and that’s sort of a little programme that we’ll do,” Howship-Burness says. “But other than that, we just put little one-offs in. And if people really like it, we play it again.”

Berger has also kept his passion for documentaries from his time at DocHouse and shows them whenever he can.

“We’ve got a Melbourne exclusive of a documentary film playing tonight called Any Other Way on an unsung R&B singer from America in the 60s,” he says with a passion, as if he hasn’t been watching movies all his life. “And we’ve got a DJ playing beforehand who’s a big fan of that R&B artist. So that’ll be fun.”

Depending on the day, there are two to four screenings, with an average occupancy of about 70 percent. Considering they only have 60 seats, that means that each show sells out about 45 seats. These are good figures for a cinema in 2025.

Berger believes he can keep a balance. But, if he didn’t need to think about keeping the house running, what would Berger change in his program? Not that much.

“Maybe there would be some commercial films that we wouldn’t play, because they’re playing everywhere else,” he says.

“The films would be generally, I would say, be 70-80 percent the same.”

“I’m programming for films that I think are going to get an audience for people in this area, our community here.”

Article: Aleksandr Prikhodko is a second-year Bachelor of Media & Communication student at La Trobe University. You can follow him on X at @aleksprih.

Photo: Supplied by author.