The Cinema Museum welcomes the return of The Vito Project LGBTQ+ Film Club, a series of regular screenings providing different generations of LGBTQ+ people and allies an alternative safe space to socialise, watch great films and share ideas.

The Vito Project is proud to present its new 2022 Spring season: Re-Opening the Celluloid Closet, a series of screenings exploring the challenging and yet endlessly fascinating ways that classic Hollywood films depicted queer representation under the restraints of the infamous Hays Code. This was a set of self-regulating guidelines dictating what was deemed unacceptable in American movies from 1934-1968 – and homosexuality was on the “highly objectionable” list! Despite this, filmmakers took on the creative challenge to show what couldn’t be shown through veiled subtexts and exploitation.

The season season kicks off with a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 multi–Oscar Winning classic Rebecca (1940), which is being shown on a rare 35mm print!

Based on Daphne du Maurier’s novel, this popular classic tells the story of a young woman (Joan Fontaine) who marries the debonair widower Maxim De Winter (Laurence Olivier) only to find out that she must live in the shadow of his former wife, Rebecca, who died mysteriously several years earlier. Not only does the young wife have to come to grips with the terrible secret of her handsome, cold husband, she must also deal with the jealous housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), whose obsession with the late Rebecca provides some of cinema’s most notorious depictions of suppressed queer desire. Despite many remakes for film and TV, this arguably remains the most hauntingly unforgettable return to Mandalay.

The film will be followed by a conversation about the context of its production and the content of the movie.

Doors open at 17.00, for a 18.00 start.

Refreshments will be available in our licensed cafe/bar.

TICKETS & PRICING

Tickets £8 in advance or on the door.

Advance tickets may be purchased from Ticketlab, or direct from the Museum by calling 020 7840 2200 in office hours.