Cover Image: Ingrid van den Berghe, co-owner and managing director of Luna Palace Cinemas, photographed at Luna’s iconic red steps as the beloved independent cinema marks its 30th anniversary. Photo: Mark Naglazas

For almost four decades the Luna Cinemas (or, in more recent times, Luna Palace Cinemas) has been a beacon for those seeking refuge from the tsunami of fantasy/superhero/horror films that have  swamped the movie landscape.

Audiences who are still attached the idea of movies as a vehicle of personal expression, who love a worldview that hasn’t been shaped Hollywood executives, who will not allow subtitles stop them from seeking out a hidden gem continue to make their way to the Luna Leederville, Luna on SX in Fremantle and the Windsor Cinema in Nedlands.

The Luna has been around for so long — it celebrates its 30th anniversary this year  — the idea of independent cinema for generation of young is intertwined with red seating and carpets of Luna Leederville (the mothership), the warmth of the ever-smiling staff (compare that to the robotic service at the multiplexes) and their famous choc bombs.

Luna Palace is so deeply embedded in the local movie-going consciousness it’s hard to believe there was a moment in early 2020 when it looked like it would shut up shop and bring an end to the golden age of indie and arthouse cinema in Perth. The reason? COVID.

“It was touch and go. I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it through. It was an incredibly stressful time,” remembers Luna Palace co-owner and managing director Ingrid van den Berghe.

“The lockdown was a couple of months away [March of 2020], but business started to slow down before that. The Christmas and New Year period is usually our busiest time. It’s when we make enough money for the year. People were worried and kept away and distributors started to pull major releases, which made things even worse,” van den Berge continues.

“Initially I thought it would be just for a few weeks and things would get back to normal. But when the actual lockdown happened I really didn’t know how we would get out of it.”

What saved Luna Palace and kept the independent and arthouse flame alive in Perth was a range of federal and state government programs such as Jobkeeper, as well as the support of the community.

“Our landlords were great,” van den Berghe tells me over coffee at the San Remo Cholcalateria, one of the many food and beverage businesses along Oxford Street that benefit from the presence of a vibrant cinema in their vicinity.

“They didn’t charge us rent until we were out of lockdown. And the audience continued to come even though we hardly had any new films to show because Sydney and Melbourne remained locked down long after we relaxed regulations,” recalls van den Berghe.

While the support of the government and the business community enabled Luna Palace to remain afloat during this turbulent time van den Berghe says the most important factor was the upsurge of support from the community, which really didn’t want to lose the cinemas.

“The community really came together for us,” says van den Berg. “It was their desire for us to keep the cinemas going that got me through a really dark time. An example of their support is they bought choc bombs even when we weren’t screening. There were lines out the door. And our funny COVID signs became a talking point.”

The community support came because van den Berghe has carefully cultivated her brand through canny programming and paid special attention to staff selection and development (“They are our best advertising,” she says).

After managing the Lumiere Cinemas for the Film and Television Institute (it was located inside the now-demolished Perth Entertainment Centre) van de Berghe branched out on her own, transforming the New Oxford Cinema in Leederville into the Luna Cinema, opening in December in 1994 with Shallow Grave (they’ll be screening Danny Boyle’s hit black comedy for free on August 8).

“We were very purist when we started. We wouldn’t show anything that other cinemas were showing. We didn’t screen Pulp Fiction. Can you believe that? It was on five or six other screens so we refused to show it,” laughs van den Berghe.

“But the business was very different back then. There were less screens then and less films being released, so you wanted them to last a long time. So we had to be careful about what we programmed and we had to toiled hard to make them work because we were building relationships with distributors,” she says.

During this period van den Berghe evolved into a canny programmer, striking a balance between both her personal taste and that of her audience to find a sweet spot that enhances that brand and ensures the survival of the business. 

In more recent times van den Berghe admits to listening more and more to her young staff, who keep her apprised of films are not her radar and, in the case of the booming horror genre, not something with which she enjoys engaging. 

“The perfect example of this is the recent film Friendship. I was not across it. It wasn’t on any schedules and it hadn’t been released anywhere in the world. But my staff were all over it. They were hammering me to screen it. They’re really important in alerting me to films that I would otherwise miss,” she says.

The success of the Leederville location led to expansion, with the addition of the Windsor in Nedlands, Luna SX in Fremantle and a couple of outdoor locations (Luna Outdoors in Leederville and, until recently, the Camelot in Mosman Park). And in 2000 she went into a joint venture with the Melbourne-based arthouse and indie powerhouse Palace Cinemas, bringing the benefits of being part of a national chain.

However, the biggest change for van den Berghe and her team has been the digital revolution, which meant the phasing out of 35mm film and its replacement by digital projectors and data being stored on hard drives.

“The change to digital has transformed the business — mostly in a good way. In the old days my staff spent hours lugging around those huge 35mm cans. During festivals they had to run prints all over Perth. We now get 50 films in a single hard drive. Each print in the old days cost upwards of $4000 and the cost of transporting them was enormous,” says van den Berghe.

“The change to digital has given us greater flexibility. Apart from the  sheer convenience and cost-saving, we now have such programs such as  the National Theatre Live. Movie-going has changed and we now have the technology to keep up with those changes,” says van den Berghe.

While she concedes that the streaming revolution has made drawing audiences tougher, van den Berghe believes that COVID has had an even bigger impact.

“People got used to sitting at home,” she says. “They were so comfortable and there was so much on offer that the business took a long time to recover even after all the restrictions ended. It was just a habit people got into.

“But it feels like things are back to normal now. I’ve just had a look at the program for the rest of the year and it is amazing. COVID disrupted filmmaking around the world. The films are now back and so are audiences,” she says.

Indeed, the quality of films is everything for van den Berghe, who still believes audiences will flock to her cinemas if the product is good.

“They stay away when there is not much on offer, as happened during and just after COVID. They come when there are great films showing, as we had during the summer that has just passed. There is still a desire to see films on the big screen, but people are discerning. They won’t come to bad movies.”

Luna Leederville will celebrate their 30th at a sold out event in early August.

For more information on the cinema, visit:
https://www.lunapalace.com.au