Welcome to Phillip Island Movie Club

Phillip Island is a small island situated in the south of Victoria. It is most famous as the home of the little Penguins. Thousands of tourists visit the island to see the penguins come home at night to feed their babies.

The Phillip Island Movie Club began in 1983 as the Phillip Island Film Society. The club began in 1983 through a casual get together of people who all loved cinematography. Then, as now, there was no cinema on the Island. Lesla Saraghi and Anne Davie took the running in starting up the new film society. Together with a group of helpers they held their first film night at The Tropicana Motel in Cowes to watch ‘Victor Victoria”. It was a full house and started the 31 years of fabulous films sourced by Lesla and Anne.

The Phillip Island Film Society has had a number of homes and for a period of time, the home was the beloved Banfields Cinema. Banfields had a cinema, restaurant and accommodation where visitors would stay. Many weekend film festivals were held here with sherry and nibbles on the Friday night, Boston Bun for breakfast and a fabulous dinner at Banfields on the Saturday night. There was always entertainment at the Saturday evening parties and Combo Fiasco appeared one night direct from New York.

Our membership numbers are limited by the number of seats available, with a waiting list being established each year.

We try to run films from a variety of genres, countries and limited release as we believe a Film Society should offer a stimulating range of films not easily accessible to country viewers.

Please go to our Program page for more details.