Just a year after the Lumière brothers invented the cinematograph in 1895, the first screenings of this new technology of ‘moving pictures’ were held at the Mechanics’ Institute.

By the 1970’s, cinema’s death was being heralded after the devastating impact of television and the attraction of the drive-in, making the BMI’s Vegas 70 for a brief time Ballarat’s only indoor cinema.

Our latest photographic exhibition Not the Last Picture Show traces the history of cinemas in Ballarat, from the spectacular nitrate film-fuelled conflagration of the 4,000 seat Coliseum Picture Palace, now a supermarket car park, to the Skyline Drive-in, now a housing estate with a ‘Bogart Avenue’.

The exhibition will be held in the Williamson Foyer space, which formerly hosted the candy bar of the cinema, with an additional exhibition in our beautiful Heritage Reading Room.

Entry by $5 donation to the Heritage Reading Room (BMI members free).