Dismayed to learn membership numbers were down from previous years, The Lumière Reader knows what Film Societies are up against: the disillusionment of movie-going, the convenience of DVD, the instantaneity of the internet. As another season’s programme is unveiled, the tendency is, invariably, to check off the films that can be accessed by other means. We implore you to join anyway. Long-time members will vouch for the pleasures of communal viewing, and there’s nothing quite like indulging in big screen cinema – whether it be classic, marginal, or grossly underseen – in the company of a regular, appreciative, mobilized audience. If music fans can extol the virtues of witnessing a band live over listening to their albums, cinephiles should argue that watching a film at home on a television screen (or worse, on a computer monitor) cannot compare to absorbing it in a theatre alongside other people. Film Society 2008 offers plenty of opportunities to experience this: its annual silent cinema presentation always a highlight (Harold Lloyd’s immortal Safety Last! screens), forgotten festival fixtures are afforded a second life (this year, German features Requiem and Longing), while films you won’t have heard of or seen make for discoveries to look forward too (Jacques Demy’s Bay of Angels, or the Charles Burnett retrospective instances that are especially hard to come by in this country).

Though individual Societies vary in screenings between regions, the overarching New Zealand Film Society promises an excellent nationwide programme. TIM WONG (with additional words from Brannavan Gnanalingam) appraises the five films you should at least consider joining for.

Flight of the Conchords: not quite world famous, but much more than New Zealand’s 4th most popular folk parody duo. Tailing Bret and Jemaine to a secret in-store signing and performance at Wellington’s Aro Video (to coincide with the local release of FOTC on DVD), BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM witnessed their escalating cult firsthand.