Roy Medich donation to see new cinema at Powerhouse Parramatta

Property developer and philanthropist Roy Medich has made a major donation to the Powerhouse Parramatta to install a cinema in the new museum.

Roy Medich has made a major donation to the Powerhouse Parramatta that will see a new cinema named after him, taking him full circle to his boyhood working in his family cinemas. Picture: Rohan Kelly

Roy Medich’s life couldn’t be more different than his boyhood growing up in Cabramatta.

Sitting in his Bondi apartment compound, the one previously owned by James Packer where he famously scuffled on the sidewalk with David Gyngell, enjoying the sweeping northeasterly view to North Bondi, it’s hard not to be struck by how far the wealthy property developer and philanthropist has come.

But despite the relative grandeur of his life now, Medich says his heart is probably still in the west.

Roy Medich and Powerhouse Museum chief executive Lisa Havilah. Picture: Rohan Kelly

That sentiment is no better demonstrated than by the flow of his Medich Foundation’s philanthropic support.

At the University of Western Sydney, Medich has established an endowment for Indigenous arts, culture and education, funded scholarships in medical research, and supported scholarships for refugees and asylum seekers.

Now, he has expanded his philanthropic footprint westward again, and in the process has created something of a full-circle moment.

Through the foundation, Medich has made a significant donation to the Powerhouse Parramatta which will be used to support the museum’s film program and to build an intimate, 55 seat, cinema.

After his family moved from Innisfail in Far North Queensland to Sydney’s western suburbs at the end of WWII, the first business they moved into was cinemas.

It started with the Royal Theatre in Cabramatta before they expanded their operations to include The Theatre Royal at Chester Hill, the Regal in Liverpool and then Liverpool’s iconic drive-in cinema.

Some of Medich’s earliest memories are sweeping the floors at the cinema or standing at the back watching the latest releases – his favourite being Cecil B. DeMille’s epic The Ten Commandments.

A newspaper clipping from when Roy Medich ran his family’s cinemas Picture: Rohan Kelly

Medich and his family also briefly entered the film production side of the business, making the Aussie western Inn of the Damned in 1975.

But the Medich family entered the cinema business at the advent of television, then colour television, and before too long it was no longer lucrative.

“In Innisfail there wasn’t much for people to do than to go to the cinema,” Medich says.

“So when my father moved to Sydney it made sense to him to run cinemas here because he had seen how successful they had been.”

He said he doesn’t have much sentimentality for the business side of cinema; the family quickly moved out of cinemas and movies and into the much more lucrative hotel business.

But his love for movies didn’t fade.

“I think every child looks at Hollywood and the glamour, and particularly the way the studios used to look after their stars … It was really a glamorous type thing,” he said.

“But from a business point of view … can you make a career out of this? And the answer was no.

“I still love all the old movies you know Bette Davis … James Cagney, those older type films, because they had a true storyline.”

The Powerhouse Parramatta won’t necessarily be showing the old classics in the Medich Foundation Cinema when it opens at the end of the next year, but it will showcase something else close to his heart – Western Sydney.

The plan is to celebrate the diversity of Western Sydney with film programs connected to Powerhouse cultural festivals along with commissioning new works – hopefully from the local area.