Tampa is a city made for film fanatics. The historic streets of Ybor have long served as both inspiration for films and physical sets for productions. Tampa’s iconic theatre, which just celebrated its 90th birthday, stands as a reminder of the power these narratives hold. Film serves as a way of making sense of the world around us, while offering a kind of intellectual refuge to escape to.
The film industry at its best is a machine generating empathy. The organization Second Screen Cult Cinema exists to bring the films boasting big ideas and timeless messages to the forefront of the Tampa community.
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The Best of the Bay Award-winning organization shows a cult classic film each month at The Vault in downtown Tampa. Cult Classics are films that, while not always commercial successes, command devout admiration from a small community of film lovers. These films are often regarded as ahead of their time; some even find themselves on the receiving end of ire from film critics who had trouble digesting them on their first viewing.
Second Screen’s 2017 lineup is filled with exceptional films that appeal to all art aesthetics. Local restaurants serve up savory entrees available for purchase during the viewing. Screenings begin at 7:30pm the second Wednesday of every month. Here’s the full schedule:
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January 11
Possession
A woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce. Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister.
February 8
In The Mood For Love
Two neighbors, a woman and a man, form a strong bond after both suspect extramarital activities of their spouses. However, they agree to keep their bond platonic so as not to commit similar wrongs.
March 8
Big Trouble in Little China
An All-American trucker gets dragged into a centuries-old mystical battle in Chinatown.
April 12
Persona
A nurse is put in charge of a mute actress and finds that their personas are melding together.
May 10
Blow-Up
A mod London photographer finds something very suspicious in the shots he has taken of a mysterious beauty in a desolate park.
June 14
Breathless
A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he reunites with a hip American journalism student and attempts to persuade her to run away with him to Italy.
July 12
Do The Right Thing
On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone’s hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.
August 9
Rushmore
The extracurricular king of Rushmore preparatory school is put on academic probation.
September 13
Eyes Without a Face
A surgeon causes an accident which leaves his daughter disfigured, and goes to extremes to give her a new face.
October 11
The Devils
In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun.
November 8
The Third Man
Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
December 13
Jackie Brown
A middle-aged woman finds herself in the middle of a huge conflict that will either make her a profit or cost her life.
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