Opinion: Farewell to the Nambucca Silver Screen

TWENTY-THREE years and two-and-a-half months ago, on 14 November 2002, my partners, investors and I bought the Nambucca Cinema Centre, starting a wonderful journey in the cinema business.

Unfortunately, it has come time to close the cinema, after more than 40 years of it serving the Nambucca Valley.

From the beginning…

We were absolute novices in the cinema business, but we learnt fast.

We opened with a Harry Potter movie, so it was busy from day one, but nothing compared to six weeks later on Boxing Day 2002, with the second Lord of the Rings movie.

It was raining, people were lined-up out the door at 8am, some dressed as hobbits, and every ticket for three days was sold out in advance, with lots of tears from people who were missing out.

Love Actually and James Bond were also doing well in the other cinemas.

We had 1,000 handmade choc tops ready, which had all melted on Christmas Day as the freezers failed and had to be made again, and there was an oil spill in the storeroom – among many other stories.

It was all hands to the deck just to survive what was an amazing day.

Our choc tops were made famous on the John Laws show for being the best in Australia, a quote we proudly put on a sign over the choc top fridge.

The flavours included the very Nambucca friendly Macadamia.

Many locals would drop in on the way home from dinner to grab some choc tops for dessert, without seeing a movie!

There have been many great events we were a part of in Nambucca over the years, with some of the great memories including:

2003: Jonathon Teplitzky, Director of Getting’ Square, presenting his movie. It included very funny scenes with David Wenham as Johnny Spiteri, especially the hilarious courtroom scene.

2004: Director Chris Kennedy presenting the Aussie comedy A Man’s Gotta Do, to 200 people in a full cinema. I had watched the movie on a VHS tape (remember them) at home and thought it was pretty average, only to see it transformed to a great comedy in front of an audience, all laughing in unison. There was also a talk by the

director, whose day job was as a dentist and who never made another movie to my knowledge .

2006: Shane Jacobsen as Kenny in front of a full house doing a great comedy routine before the movie screened. When I went to greet him as Shane in the foyer he said “It’s Kenny” as he was already in character and stayed in character the whole time. Then he wrote a very funny quote over the men’s urinals: “Our aim is to keep

these toilets clean, your aim will help” and signed it Kenny Smyth. Years later, in 2018, he and his brother Clayton (Director of Kenny) returned for a world premiere of Brothers’ Nest, and added a message from Shane and Clayton as well.

2010: The screening on the national opening night of Tomorrow, When the War Began, with author the late John Marsden attending (who had not been invited to the capital city premieres). I’ve never seen a 60-yearold maths teacher mobbed by teenagers asking him to sign their books – the line went out the door and into the carpark.

2011: Actor Luke Ford presented a screening of the iconic Red Dog.

2015: Michael Caton and Jeremy Sims arrived to present Last Cab to Darwin.

2018: Glenn A Baker visited for a Glenn A Baker Music Film Festival.

2021: Leah Purcell presented her amazing movie The Drover’s Wife, and the talk afterwards was so powerful in relation to Indigenous issues that it had many people, myself included, in tears as she bonded with the locals.

On top of this I remember having dinner with Barry Crocker when we showed The Adventures of Barry MacKenzie, and the stress of our first 3D presentation in Nambucca with a re-release of Avatar.

Promoted by a local radio station, we had 200 people waiting for the movie to start, and all we had was a green screen due to a technical issue – despite extensive testing – and then the intense relief we had in getting it going just in time.

Rolling credits

I think of all the staff we have had over the years; the amazing managers, some of whom went on to work at other sites, and all the many young staff for whom it was their first job and who went on to many and varied successful careers and lives.

We are proud to have provided them with their start and to have employed locals for so many years.

I especially want to thank Susanne Young, who has been with us for a couple of decades and has been on the

Nambucca management team for much of that time, including as Manager for the last few years.

Susanne will be staying with us to take over our Sawtell site from Judi Quinn, who has also been with us for over 20 years – the first 10 at Nambucca. Judi is retiring after a glittering career.

And I want to especially mention two people who have been there for the full 23+ years: Jeanette Bailey, our Chief Financial Officer who, with her husband Ian, was an original partner; and Andy Schmidtke, who was chief projectionist when we took over the Nambucca Cinema and went on to open our Port Macquarie cinema a few years later. Andy then became our Head of Facilities and Technical across all our cinemas.

To our wonderful customers, from all parts of the Valley, and all the tourists who have visited over the years, thank you for your support, humour and grace.

We look forward to continuing to see you at our Sawtell and Kempsey cinemas.

Having lived in the Nambucca Valley for 15 years, and on the Mid North Coast for longer, the closure of the cinema is a very sad day personally.

However, the impacts of COVID-19 and the Hollywood strikes, have seen Nambucca slower than elsewhere to bounce back.

Given the age of the building and the fitout, we made the hard decision to finish our lease early, when it became an option.

It was not an easy decision, but the presence of our two newer cinemas to the north and south was an important consideration in making sure we can still serve the people of the Nambucca Valley.

Cinema will continue to recover and thrive on the Mid North Coast and around Australia and

the world.

There is nothing like gathering with others in the dark with the big screen and surround sound, and immersing yourself in a great story.

See you at the Movies,

Kieren Dell

CEO, Regional Cinemas Australia