News / Entertainment
Curtain rises on Brunswick’s new picture house
Sydney Road venue starts a new chapter in the history of Brunswick’s cinemas
Arden Gough Phillips
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Lou and Gus Berger hope to replicate the popularity of their Thornbury Picture House in Brunswick. Photo: Mark Phillips
News / Entertainment
Curtain rises on Brunswick’s new picture house
Sydney Road venue starts a new chapter in the history of Brunswick’s cinemas
Arden Gough Phillips
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
SEVERAL decades after the last of the great Sydney Road cinemas shut down, local film buffs are in for a treat with the opening of the Brunswick Picture House this week.
The cinema is the latest adventure for Gus and Lou Berger, co-owners of the popular Thornbury Picture House.
But it is more than just a place to watch films. As a chronicler of Melbourne’s “lost history”, Gus Berger is hoping to trigger a mini-revival of the mid-20th century golden years of Brunswick cinemas.
“The history of cinemas in Melbourne has always been an interest of mine and it’s always followed me from where I’ve lived,” said Berger, who has been a Brunswick resident for 10 years.
“I’ve never come across an area that’s had a richer history of cinemas than Brunswick.”
Opening on Friday, Brunswick Picture House harks back to the heyday of local cinemas when venues like the Liberty, the Lyric, the Empire and the Padua attracted thousands of patrons each weekend.
Occupying a building in the block of Sydney Road between Blyth and Victoria streets that dates back to 1875 and was once the Melbourne Omnibus Co.,the new 81-seat cinema will include a 6.5 metre screen, along with a state-of-the-art sound system and a bar.
The Brunswick Picture House has been a long time coming and every aspect of its fit-out has been designed with loving care by Gus and Lou, from the bespoke seats that were inspired by a cinema they spent time at in the UK to the art-deco bar.
They began planning for a new venue in 2019, when cinema attendance was at what Gus describes an an all-time high, before being put on the backburner during the COVID lockdowns.
Since the initial idea was planted, the couple have been searching for the right location to house their new cinema.
“We could have found a warehouse in a side street and it would have been an easier build but being on Sydney Road was pretty important, there’s so much foot traffic, you’re so much more visible,” says Gus.
They bought the heritage building next to Tiba’s Lebanese Restaurant in early-2024, before construction began this year.
The building has had to be extensively gutted and refurbished for the cinema.
Director John Ruane will introduce a rare screening of his classic 1990 comedy Death in Brunswick on the opening weekend of the new cinema.
Both Gus and Lou have deep roots in the film industry. Gus has run short film festivals, operates a pop-up outdoor cinema business and is a documentary film maker best known for directing The Lost City of Melbourne, the highest grossing Australian documentary of 2022, which explores Melbourne’s architectural history, including the many forgotten suburban cinemas of the times. The film received an Australian Film Critics Association award for Best Australian Documentary in 2022 and a Victorian History Award in 2023.
Lou is a music supervisor for films and television who specialises in copyright and music licensing.
Together they opened the 57-seat, single screen Thornbury Picture House in an old garage in High Street in 2019. It shows an eclectic mix of cult favourites, film classics and new releases.
Brunswick Picture House will follow the same formula.
The first movie it will screen at 6pm on Friday is Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, the title of which aptly describes the trials and tribulations of opening a new cinema.
They will also show current releases including Bugonia and Wicked For Good, along with a new Melbourne documentary, Signorella: Little Miss. Silent era classics The Circus and the influential Battleship Potemkin (celebrating its 100th anniversary this year) will screen with live scores on Sunday.
But the absolute highlight of the opening weekend will be a Saturday late afternoon screening of John Ruane’s 1990 black comedy Death in Brunswick, starring Sam Neill and the late John Clarke, which will be introduced by the director himself (this is already sold out).
Although Gus says he wants to revisit “some of the films that we’ve really loved over the past few years at Thornbury,” his ultimate goal is to show “good, independent, interesting films”.
He is confident about the sorts of films that local audiences will turn out for.
“Lou and I talk to a lot of people who come through [Thornbury Picture House] and we’re able to build a relationship with our audience in a way that a multiplex can’t.”
Berger champions the single-screen model for local, independent cinemas, which is making a comeback in Australia’s capital cities.
While film attendances are still well down on pre-pandemic levels, box office takings are bouncing back as audiences crave the communal experience of watching a movie together on a large screen in a dark cinema – something that cannot be replicated by streaming delivered on demand onto a living room television set or into a home theatre.
“The majority of people are all coming into the cinema to see the same film,” said Berger.
“They’re going into that cinema and watching that film and then all coming out again, having had that experience of seeing that film with those people.”
He hopes that collaboration between neighbouring venues and the integration of the bar space with the cinema will create a social and lively atmosphere for moviegoers.
One thing the Brunswick Picture House will have over its Thornbury counterpart will be its 35mm projector, which is making a return from the Berger’s first cinema venture at The George in St Kilda.
“The idea of having 35mm film is really important,” says Berger. ”Watching a film projected on film, it kind of feels alive, no two prints are the same.”
When it comes to goals for Brunswick Picture House, Berger only has one wish. He doesn’t want Brunswick Picture House to exclusively target a single demographic, such as cinephiles, families, or seniors, instead catering the new cinema’s programming towards Brunswick locals.
“I hope it will be something that the people of Brunswick want to come to and feel a bit of ownership about.
“I never feel like I need to leave Brunswick in my day-to-day life.
“It’s important to have these things in the local area. People may not know that they like the idea of an independent cinema until they can actually go to one.”
The full program of current and upcoming releases is now available on the Brunswick Picture House website.
Brunswick residents are also invited to become Foundation Members by purchasing a seat in the cinema with a plaque bearing their name for $500.
