When Wānaka’s world-famous Cinema Paradiso was established 30 years ago, the town had three pubs and not much other indoor entertainment.

So remembers the outgoing (in more ways than one) Paradiso owner Calum MacLeod in conversation on the The Outlet Podcast this week.

Calum and his wife Andrea Riley, who set up Cinema Paradiso with Brian Hildreth in 1994, have now sold the cinema to Carolyn Whitaker and Hamish Menlove.

Calum said going to the movies in early 90s Wānaka involved driving up to two hours’ across the gravel Crown Range, spending a “small fortune” eating out, and driving back.

He wondered if a cinema “could maybe work here”, and the old town hall (then on Ardmore Street) had a projection booth on the end. It was a “cracking space”, Calum said, and it was boiling in summer and freezing in winter.

“The screen came down and then every weekend … we hoisted it up to the ceiling and cleared the hall out,” Calum said.

The rest is an entertaining and eventful history of Cinema Paradiso.

“From there the seed was born and there's some fantastic stories that came out of that old town hall before council, in its infinite wisdom, decided to knock it down.” 

Those early days were community focused and Calum said the police sergeant at the time described the cinema as the best thing that had ever happened for young Wānaka people.

The two opening weekend movies were Drop Zone and Legends of the Fall.

The old town hall’s “hard ass” motivated Calum and Andrea to purchase some second-hand couches, but after people began fighting over them they bought enough comfortable chairs and sofas to accommodate their maximum audience of 50.

“That meant that every time that we cleared the hall, we had to put all the couches and seats on the stage. So it was a Jane Fonda workout every weekend trying to get the food up and running. It was good times, really good times.”

The cinema has moved site a couple of times: after the old town hall it shifted across to the old Central Electric Power Board building, (now Bottle-O). They built tiered seating and the business went from weekends to five days a week.

“Thankfully [we] didn't have to lift the couches onto a stage every night and [we] operated there for 14 years,” Calum said. 

More recently it moved to its current site at the former Catholic Church of Our Lady of Fatima on Brownston Street, after a bit of redesigning and the addition of tiered seating, insulation, and sound dampening. The cinema expanded to two screens in 2019.

Paradiso’s controversial intermissions were, Calum said, “a great way to generate an extra maybe a couple of dollars”. In the early days the intermission was a social occasion, but even after the move to Brownston Street punters wanted to keep the intermission - and the sofas.

Andrea and Callum with their trademark half-time cookies.

“So we kept the intermission and thank goodness we did because I think it's part of the experience. And if you look at Bollywood, which is a much bigger beast than Hollywood, it's all based around the intermission and eating and they approach it in a different way and it is a social occasion.”

As for the “grunge” factor, Calum said most people loved it.

“It's like going round to your mate's place to watch something, but it's a superb quality sound system and good projection gear. And … you can feel relaxed from the off.”

Of the many highlights from the past 30 years, Calum recalled when dogs were allowed in the cinema (in town hall days). A Jack Russell called Baz was a regular cinema goer who would clean out the ice cream cartons on the floor when people had finished with them.  

“So we were screening a film called Scream, the original Scream horror slash thing. And in the middle of this Baz licked this poor woman's leg. She hit the roof - off like the 4th of July. The whole place erupted … and it was just a poetic moment in terms of cinema.”

On another occasion the chairman of the American Academy of Motion Pictures and Performing Arts came along to watch a film and left his card.

“...On the back he'd handwritten ‘your fame has spread far and wide, keep up the good work’. I mean, this is the Scotsman in the back of the Wānaka, you know, you couldn't get further from anywhere on the planet and here he is going, ‘keep up the good work’.”

Calum also recalled a young man coming in to see him, saying his parents had taken him to the cinema when he was one. They had told him when he went back to Wānaka he had to visit Paradiso and say hello to Calum. 

“I hugged him like a brother. And we had a couple of beers… When it sticks in their memory enough to send their son, you get that visitation back, that connection, that emphasis. It's gold. I can't think of any other industry that would have that sort of impact and that sort of feel that transcends 20 years.”

His and Andrea’s decision to sell the cinema was “massive”, Calum said.

“Thirty years is a long time doing anything. But … you find something you love doing, you'll never work another day in your life. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing and setting it up and all the changes.

“It was incredibly hard, but it's time. It's just the right time.” 

Calum said his family was pleased to sell to another local family. 

“Hamish and Carolyn are really good people. I've been, as part of the handover, working and their kids are in there. And it's the same as when we started.

“They'll be setting new memories and hopefully continuing the legacy… I like to think of it as a wee iconic bit of Wānaka that will hopefully stick around. It’s not necessarily just another place that's got beautiful vistas and whatever we've got around New Zealand. It's just that little point of difference which would be nice to see it carry on.”

PHOTOS: Wānaka App