Canberra has earless dragons, legless lizards and a coffee shop without a shop, and now it has a cinema without a cinema. A ride-in cinema is being trialled this Canberra Day by pop-up coffee shop, Sly Fox, beside a bike path in O’Connor.
Reminiscent of Canberra’s old Starlight Drive-in, there will be a candy bar, popcorn, soft drinks and a 20-foot inflatable screen with projector and stereo sound system. Being a “ride-in” cinema, the mode of transport will be pushbikes not cars.
Owner of Sly Fox Coffee, Patrick Dillon, has already tested the inflatable screen out by watching Star Wars in his suburban Melba backyard, which he said was “really, really enjoyable”.
“You never get to watch [online streaming] films on the big screen anymore. That’s the thing that I want to tap into because there are a lot of really good movies that are watched on Netflix,” he said. “Now we’ve got the opportunity to put it on a big screen and I like sci-fi in a big way, there’s lots of cheesy sci-fi out there.”
The debut flick is a “mystery movie”, a classic sci-fi that’s rated PG so it’s family-friendly. In a perfect world, the “ride-in” cinema would be powered by bicycle (a pedal-powered projector with a couple of old Electric Shadows cinema seats does exist in Canberra) but Patrick said it took a lot of stamina to run.
“We will be using a generator because with the bicycle-powered cinema you had to pedal frantically and no-one could keep up the pace for more than five minutes,” Patrick said. “So you wouldn’t be able to do an entire movie on the bicycle at our outdoor cinema.”
A hot dinner and dessert can also be purchased from Sly Fox on the night so all you have to bring is a chair or blanket to sit on. The site for the outdoor cinema has a gentle slope so it will resemble a grassy amphitheatre under the stars.
“It’s an alternative cinema experience to what’s out there,” Patrick said. “I’ve wanted to do this for ages, I bought the screen online back in November. This is the first one and it all depends on how this one goes, to see if it’s easy to do.”
For those unfamiliar with Sly Fox, it’s a coffee shop without a shop. For the past 10 years it’s had no fixed address and no set opening hours. Patrick dubs it an “ephemeral” coffee shop.
He got the idea after working as a barista for decades and discovering that an all-encompassing coffee experience needed beautiful surroundings, not bricks and mortar. His preferred location has become a bike-path in leafy O’Connor, complete with community garden and furniture crafted from pallets. So come on Canberra, on your bike.
Sly Fox’s Ride-in Movies is at the bike path between Macarthur Avenue and David Street, O’Connor, Monday, March 11, Dinner and drinks served from 5.30pm, movie starts at sunset. Sly Fox Coffee is on Facebook and Instagram.
