Love movies, being out and about with friends, but want something a bit more personal to the endless internet streaming platforms, cable TV or regular cinema experience available in Dubbo and won’t break the bank?

The Black Box Theatre in Dubbo, part of the community arts rooms upstairs at the Western Plains Cultural Centre (WPCC), hosts low-cost monthly film screenings for ten months of the year, which may be of interest.

It’s all part of the “Smokescreen” film series program curated and coordinated by the WPCC.

Dubbo Photo News sat down with the curator of this year’s program, WPCC education officer Rebecca Walker, to find out more about this year’s offerings at Smokescreen.

It’s important to know that Smokescreen isn’t a new program – it’s been running for several years, Rebecca said.

“It was born out of the fact we have this resource, and there wasn’t a lot of stuff out there at the time for people who are interested in a lot of different films or being able to regularly view them,” Rebecca explained.

From small beginnings with just a handful of film afficionados at screenings, Smokescreen has grown its own dedicated following. Some members will gather at The Establishment Bar in Macquarie St after the monthly screenings to discuss the films over a drink, enjoying a buy-one-get-one-free offer for ticketholders from the bar, which is a Smokescreen supporter.

Now part of regular programming at WPCC, interest in Smokescreen is growing. Screenings take place at 4pm on the first Saturday of the month from February to November. Tickets are just $10 (plus booking fees) and available through online platform 123Tix. Season passes are offered for just $75.

The challenge of curating the annual program is given to individual members of the WPCC Cultural Development Team, Rebecca said, and they are responsible for planning the film schedule for two years.

Each season of Smokescreen has a theme and in 2026 that theme is “Breaking The Reel”.

This is Rebecca’s second year at the Smokescreen helm and she is preparing to hand the baton over to another teammate in a few months’ time for the next two years. She admits that her interest in science fiction influenced the program in both years.

“I wanted people to have an opportunity to see science fiction in a different light,” Rebecca explained.

“That's very much along the lines of Smokescreen, it's giving opportunities for things and for people to see films, filmmakers, actors and actresses in different ways, and that became a bit of a running theme as well.

“This year's program, Breaking the Real, is all about defying those expectations; people who have taken on challenges of filmmaking in different ways, and break from the mould,” she added.

This year’s program features an eclectic range of films. Films shown so far this year have included Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”, Christopher Nolan’s “Insomnia”, Ridley Scott’s “Thelma & Louise”, David Lynch’s “The Straight Story”, and Patty Jenkins’ “Monster”.

Next up in the Smokescreen program, scheduled for this Saturday, July 4, is Robert Redford’s multi-Academy Award winning film “Ordinary People”. Remaining films for 2026 include Richard Fleishcher’s “The Boston Strangler”, Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon A Time In The West”, David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams’ “Airplane”, and the season will finish off in November with Spike Jonze’s “Being John Malkovich”.

“There's a bit of old, there's a bit of new, there's some thriller, there's some mystery, there's some comedy, so there's a whole bunch of different kind of genres that people can tap into,” Rebecca said of the program.

Further information about Smokescreen and links to the ticket booking platform are available at www.westernplainsculturalcentre.org/smokescreen. Programs are also available at the WPCC.