Day 2 of the film festival was taking place at CineBistro in Hyde Park. If you've never been to this movie theater you have to check it out. Normally I would skip grabbing dinner before seeing a movie here because at this theater you actually get served food IN the theater. And the food and drinks are good! Plus they have big comfy seating. It's a fun experience.
We decided against grabbing dinner at the actual theater because we wanted to focus on the movie. Plus we were in Hyde Park Village and we wanted to have a fun date night out, so we decided to eat before the two movies we had planned on seeing that night. We chose The Wine Exchange as our dinner destination. Just like the night before we decided on sharing a bunch of appetizers. And there were delicious. Plus we tried their red and white wine flights and discovered some new wines we like. Bonus!
 |
| Wine Flights at The Wine Exchange |
After we were all filled up on good food and good wine, we headed over to the theater. The first film we chose to see was called "In Lieu of Flowers". It's a romance film in which a man and woman meet in a group grieving the loss of a their significant other.
Once again I was impressed with the movie. I thought it was well written and well acted. And there might have been a few surprises in there as well.
Then came the Q & A session, my favorite part, and of course I enjoyed that. We learned why certain decisions were made in selecting the actors and how the ending was decided. (I don't want to give anything away!)
 |
| Tickets to the Films @ CineBistro HydePark |
We had a little bit of time before the next movie started so we grabbed a drink at the bar. Then in was into another theater and we were ready for the next movie - "The Red Robin". This one was a thriller. I'm going to quote the description of the movie from the GIFF booklet because it does a great job describing the film. "A tormented son holds his family hostage in an attempt to prove that his father, a world renowned psychiatrist, experimented on his children on behalf of a US government mind control experiment. His frantic search for the truth threatens to expose deep familial mysteries and a potentially horrifying past".
The movie wound up being different that I had expected from seeing the trailer, for some reason I thought it was going to be scary, but I still enjoyed it. I held my attention and I really loved the character of the crazy son, Tommy.
Wasn't I lucky then when during the Q & A session the actor that was in attendance was none other than Ryan O'Nan who played Tommy? It was interesting to hear how he got into the role, and the research he did for the role. It was also interesting to hear the writer discuss why he wrote the film. Apparently these type of mind control experiments actual occurred. Crazy!
 |
| Q & A Session after The Red Robin |
After a late Thursday night at the Gasparilla Film Fest there was one more movie we were planning on seeing - Enemy. It was showing on Friday night at Muvico Centro Ybor at 10:30pm. The problem? I had a 5k race to run at 8:40pm at the Florida State Fairgrounds. Would we be able to make it? We were sure going to try! We had such a good experience so far with the films, we figured we would probably like this one too.
We ran our race, hurried to the car, swapped out our sweaty shirts for clean ones and drove over to Ybor City.
 |
| Night 3 of GIFF |
We got to the theater in time for the film, but when we tried to get our ticket we were informed that the showing had been cancelled. Bummer. I looked on all formed of social media thinking that I missed this communication, but I didn't see anything posted anywhere. I even checked the App being used for the event - it STILL said it was showing in 10 minutes! This was my only disappointment. We rushed to get there for nothing.
We decided to make the best of it and bought a ticket for the movie Divergent which was opening that day. I had recently read the book and liked it so we figured why not (This had nothing to do with the film festival, but happened to be playing at that movie theater). We enjoyed the movie and made the best of the night.
There were other film festival films I would have liked to have watched, but due to work scheduling conflicts I was unable to make it. I'm going to check them out on my own time.
I'm hoping to be able to check out GIFF again next year and I think everyone should do the same. The movies are fun, the Q & A sessions are very interesting and it's definitely a fun way to spend the weekend in Tampa!