Initally the activities of film societies were viewed with a certain amount of suspicion by the commercial cinemas, which sensed a possible threat to their own business. Happily, those days soon passed. Not only has film society membership remained too small to have any appreciable effect on box-office takings, but film societies, many of whose members are ardent cinemagoers, have been willing enough to recommend the better films screening commercially. A film society is not in competition with the commercial cinema, but is complementary to it, one of its functions being to screen those films of restricted appeal which commercial exhibitors do not wish to handle.

It was not long before the commercial exhibitors began co-operating with film societies in arranging special screenings of 35mm films. In October 1947, the Wellington Film Society, with the co-operation of Kerridge Odeon. organized a Film Festival at the Time Theatre, Cuba Street, presenting Chaplin's The Gold Rush, Disney's The Reluctant Dragon, Carol Reed's The Way Ahead, and others. By arrangement with the managers of Wellington's independent theatres, the Paramount and the Roxy, Sunday night screenings were presented of a number of films which, although imported commercially, either did not achieve commercial distribution at all or met with limited success. Films screened included The Miracle (Italy 1948, Roberto Rossellini), The Raven (France 1943, Henri-Georges Clouzot), The Pearl (Mexico 1953, Emilio Fernandez), and The Difficult Years (Italy 1948, Luigi Zampa), as well as repeat screenings of such more successful films as Les Enfants du Paradis and La Kermess Heroique.

During the first Festival of Wellington in 1959, the Society, in association with the management of the Roxy, arranged a fortnight's programme of feature films including some which had met with a poor public response when screened earlier, such as Gate of Hell (Japan), The Great Adventure (Sweden) and 1984 (UK), Nearly all sessions were crowded, and the season had to be extended.

A more ambitious scheme was launched in 1963. At the request of the Wellington Film Society, N Z Film Services Ltd arranged the importation of some 35mm films exclusively for film society screenings, including Umberto D (Italy 1952, Vittorio de Sica), Le Testament D'Orphee (France 1959, Jean Cocteau), The Lady With the Little Dog (Jofif Heifits, USSR 1959) and Calabuch (Spain/Italy 1956, Luis G Berlanga). In Wellington these were screened at the Paramount on Sunday nights, and at first the success of the screenings exceeded the most optimistic expectations of the Executive. Later, however, with a greater number of commercial cinemas presenting regular Sunday night screenings and an increased number of foreign-language films available commercially, the Society's Sunday night screenings became uneconomic and were discontinued.

The Wellington Film Society revived the idea of FilmFestivals in 1972 with an independent programme of seven films in seven days at the Paramount. From this modest beginning has grown the current annual Wellington Film Festival of more than 150 films over seventeen days.

As well as the annual extravaganza, the Society has supported and run many film weeks in association with various Embassies or other groups.

A JapaneseFilmWeek ran at the Paramount in September 1975. It included such titles as Journey Into Solitude (Koichi Saito, 1972), History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (Shohei Imamura, 1970) and Eighteen Ruffians (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1963). The Music (Yasuzo Masumura, 1972) was intended to be screened but was banned by the NZ censor.

The ParamountStyle, screened at the Paramount in April 1978, was a rare chance to see a selection of Paramount classic films from the 1930s in new 35m prints. Titles included The Scarlet Empress (Joseph von Sternberg, USA 1934), The Devil is a Woman (Joseph von Sternberg, USA 1935), Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey, USA 1935) and One Hour With You (Ernst Lubitsch, USA 1932).

In association with the Japan Foundation and the Japan Information and Cultural Center, the Wellington Film Society ran a JapaneseFilmFestival at the Museum Theatre in December 1980. Films included Dodes'ka-Den (Akira Kurosawa, 1970), The Assassination of Ryoma (Kazuo Kuroki, 1974), Coup D'etat (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1973) and Pastoral Hide-and-Seek (Shuji Terayama, 1974).

The Royal Swedish Embassy, in association with the Wellington Film Society, presented a Scandinavian Film Week in October 1983 at the Academy Cinema. Films included The Flight of the Eagle (Jan Troell, Sweden 1982), Stepping Out (Esben Hiolund Carlsen, Denmark 1981), Betrayal (Vibeke Lokkeberg, Norway 1981), The House (Egill Edvardsson, Iceland 1983) and Gotta Run! (Mikko Niskanen, Finland 1982). Two of the directors, Jan Troell and Esben Hoilund Carlsen, were in New Zealand to introduce their films and also attended a Meet the Directors session at the Library Lecture Hall.

The Swedish Embassy and the Wellington Film Society also presented a Swedish Film Festival in March 1987 which included Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman 1982), False as Water (Falsk som Vatten 1985), Ake and His World (Allan Edwall 1984) and Amarosa (Mai Zetterling 1985).

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