Last Updated: 10/7/26

ALL SECRET CINEMA PRESENTATIONS ARE SHOWN IN 16mm (or larger!) FILM ON A GIANT SCREEN (NOT VIDEO...NOT EVER!)

Since 1992, the Secret Cinema has been the Philadelphia area’s premiere floating repertory cinema series, bringing hundreds of unique programs to nightclubs, bars, coffee houses, museums, open fields, colleges, art galleries, bookstores, and sometimes even theaters and film festivals. Drawing on its own large private film archive (as well as other collections), the Secret Cinema attempts to explore the uncharted territory and the genres that fall between the cracks, with programs devoted to educational and industrial films, cult and exploitation features, cartoons, rare television, local history, home movies, erotic films, politically incorrect material, and the odd Hollywood classic. As long as it exists on real celluloid, that is—Secret Cinema screenings never use video/digital projection. While mainly based in Philadelphia, the Secret Cinema has also brought programming to other cities and countries.

Archive Discoveries 2026:

Unseen Curiosities from the Secret Cinema Collection at Rotunda

Thursday, October 8, 2026
8:00 pm
Admission: FREE

The Rotunda
4014 Walnut Street
Philadelphia

On Thursday, October 8, The Secret Cinema will return to the Rotunda with another chapter of our occasional series, Archive Discoveries 2026: Unseen Curiosities from the Secret Cinema Collection. Once again we'll feature a mélange of fascinating short films from the past. As we go through our collection, reel by reel, we continually find films that don't necessarily lend themselves to fitting into a themed group, yet are too interesting, or fun, or funny to not share. None have been shown in previous Secret Cinema programs. Indeed, few of these films are likely to have been shown anywhere in recent years.

There will be one complete show at 8:00 pm. Admission is free (as are all programs in the Rotunda's monthly "Bright Bulb Screening Series").

A few highlights from this new edition of Archive Discoveries 2026… include:

Invisible Walls (1968, Dir: Richard A. Cowan) - The "invisible walls" of the title are the boundaries of personal space, in this amusing cross between an educational sociology film and television's Candid Camera. A filmed experiment using a hidden camera tracks actors in a public square posing as conductors of a marketing survey, as they get uncomfortably closer and closer to their unwitting subjects, whose reactions are then analyzed.

Geronimo Jones (1970, Dir: Bert Salzman) - Poignant story of a young American Indian boy living in an Arizona reservation who trades a tribal heirloom for an old TV set, then uses it to show cowboy movies to his medicine man grandfather. Director Salzman won an Academy Award for his 1975 short film Angel and Big Joe.

Time Out for a Hobby (1950s, Dir: Neil Harvey) - A suburban father, visibly angry and frustrated by the intrusions on his quiet time by his family, finds a solution at the local hobby shop -- distractions for his noisy kin in the way of model planes and boats, leather crafting and paint-by-number kits. Sponsored by the Hobby Industry Association of America.

Pizza Pizza Daddy-O (1967, Dir: Bess Lomax Hawes, Bob Eberlein) - A straight-forward documentation of street rhyming and dancing games played by young black girls in a Los Angeles playground. Co-director (and Bryn Mawr alumnus) Bess Lomax Hawes was a singer, musician, teacher and pioneering folklorist, and the sister of Library of Congess folk song collector Alan Lomax. She was the first director of the Folk and Traditional Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton.

Plus much more.

Science After Hours event “Fright Nite”

at the Franklin Institute

Friday, October 16, 2026
7:30 pm until 11:30 pm
Admission: $$40, $35 Franklin Institute members.

The Franklin Institute
222 N. 20th Street
Philadelphia, PA
215-448-1200

On Friday, October 16, the Secret Cinema will again participate in the Franklin Institute's multi-dimensional event Science After Hours. This popular series features programming for grown-ups that combines science demonstrations, a d.j./light show, rooftop stargazing, music, food, drink, and once more, a film screening, all throughout the museum's historic galleries. The theme this month is (naturally) "Fright Nite."

Doors open at 7:30 pm, and the event ends at 11:30 pm.

Admission is $40, and $35 for Franklin Institute members.

The Secret Cinema portion will consist of an approximately 90-minute program of spooky shorts, to be shown twice. We'll select short films from our archive featuring Halloween-themed cartoons, horror movie trailers, documentaries on the supernatural, and even some gory surgery footage...and more. All projected from rare 16mm film prints, on the spectacular big screen of the museum's Franklin Theater.

More details here.

FUTURE SECRET CINEMA EVENTS (more info soon):