MIFF Circle Patron Pinky Watson reflects on her lifelong love of cinema and the profound impact of MIFF.

For Pinky Watson, it was her grandmother who introduced her to film. Recalling her early years in San Francisco, California, Pinky remembers accompanying her grandma on weekend trips to the movie theatre, where they would spend long afternoons engrossed in stories on screen.

These early excursions sparked an interest in cinema that would continue well into her teenage years. Pinky recalls seeing Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo when it was first released in 1958. She was with her friend Libby, and they were about 12 years old. “We weren’t allowed to go down to where the movies were in San Francisco,” Pinky explains. “But on that particular day, we snuck away from our parents, and we went to see Vertigo.”

The film was screening in a theatre on Market Street, a historic cinema district located in downtown San Francisco. It was a big, old-fashioned cinema that had cheap seats. “Libby and I took the bus downtown and we used our allowance to buy two tickets,” Pinky continues. “We didn’t tell our parents where we were going, or what we were doing, because we would have gotten in trouble.”

By today’s standards, Vertigo would not be considered a particularly extreme example of horror. But for 12-year-old Pinky, it was utterly terrifying. She recalls Libby clutching her throat during the film, sinking deeper and deeper into the old velvet seat. The experience was unexpected and startling, but also deeply transformative.

Above: Pinky Watson  |  Header: Pinky Watson (left) at a MIFF event with fellow MIFF Circle Patrons Vlad Mijic and Rosemary Forbes

Since then, Pinky has been a firm believer in the power of cinema to transform, to astonish and to overwhelm. She has been attending MIFF since 2014, after her husband passed away. “I needed to find something to keep myself occupied,” she says. “I lived in Malvern back then, and it was a way for me to get into the city and to do something that I could do alone.”

But what Pinky discovered at MIFF was greater than film itself. At MIFF, she found the warmth and generosity of an entire community. For Pinky, MIFF is as much about the people as it is about the films. She fondly recalls those pre-screening and post-screening rituals that anyone who has ever attended the festival will know and love: the warm winter coats, the glasses of wine in cinema foyers, the tram-hopping to and from theatres – the list goes on. “My favourite thing is when you get on a tram and you recognise everyone on board, because you’ve all been at the same screening,” Pinky adds. “It happens more often than you think.”

When asked to recount her favourite memory from the festival, Pinky replies: “I can’t answer that question.” Having attended the festival for over a decade, she says that there are just too many to count. Every August, Pinky blocks out her calendar so that she can go to as many MIFF screenings as possible. “I’ll see two or three films a day during the festival, or maybe even four or five,” she says, gesturing to a stack of old festival programs. “I like to go through the program page by page, highlighting things and sharing notes with friends,” she continues. “But sometimes I’ll just pick a film by random and dive straight in.”

As for genre, Pinky gravitates towards horror. “The first thing I look out for every year is the Night Shift section,” she notes, before adding: “I like the creepiness.” That’s unsurprising, given that her most formative film memory was seeing Vertigo. But Pinky likes to cast a wide net when it comes to her viewing habits. The real beauty of attending MIFF, she says, is the ability to see films from all over the world – some of which may never be screened again.

As a long-time attendee of the festival, Pinky joined the MIFF Circle – the festival’s philanthropic giving group – in 2020. The decision to support MIFF was a no-brainer. “I really do like film more than anything, I think,” Pinky reflects. “I’d rather go to a movie than do pretty much anything else.”

Today, the festival holds a special place in Pinky’s heart. Following the loss of her husband, she found refuge and comfort in movies. Through MIFF, her eyes were opened to a new world of possibilities. “MIFF saved me when I needed to be saved,” she says quietly. “It was MIFF that got me through that very difficult time in my life.”

Since 1952, MIFF has been bringing the magic of cinema to audiences in Melbourne and beyond. In darkened theatres, we’ve presented films by the great auteurs of the world alongside bold new talents – all while supporting local filmmakers and celebrating stories from home.

If you’d like to help us to secure the future of the festival, show your love by making a donation today. Your donation will help us craft new opportunities for life-changing cinematic encounters. Good cinema, at its very best, will linger for a lifetime. Just ask Pinky, who first made this discovery many years ago in an old cinema in downtown San Francisco.

To make a donation, or to get in touch with our Philanthropy team, click here.