Tribeca’s Best Actor of 2021 Matt Leone (L) is supposed to be in town for the July 8 premiere of ‘God’s Waiting Room.’ Credit: Courtesy

It’s been a full year since Tampa native Tyler Riggs made his directorial debut at Tribeca Film Festival, and the main characters of “God’s Waiting Room”—Rosie, Jules and Brandon—along with their hopes, insecurities and undealt-with-issues have haunted viewers ever since.

Like his Tribeca debut, a Friday, July 8 screening at St. Petersburg’s Green Light Cinema is probably going to be sold-out.

Lucky for the rest of us, Riggs told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that Green Light—an independent movie house located at 221 2nd Ave N in downtown St. Pete—is hosting another screening on Wednesday, July 13.

Both engagements are a fantastic opportunity to bump elbows with Florida Man Riggs, and the June 8 screening features a red carpet and Q&A with Matt Leone who won Best Actor at Tribeca 2021 for his portrayal of Jules, a charismatic hustler quietly dealing with his demons and genuinely falling for the aspiring songwriter Rosie.

The screenings also give local cinephile a chance to soak in the cinematography (it’s sweaty and heavy, like the Florida heat that defines us) and raw emotion of a dark film colored by a complicated love story plus shots of Town ‘n’ Country, Tampa Heights, East Ybor City, downtown Tampa Sulphur Springs, the beaches and thrift stores of Tampa Bay.

Riggs just screened another new film at Tribeca this year (“Peace In the Valley”), so you might as well get caught up with the homegrown, soon to be on top of the world, talent right now