There are three good independent cinemas in Bristol: a dockside arthouse called the Watershed (watershed.co.uk); a rare family local called the Orpheus (scottcinemas.co.uk); and the Cube, which is the hardest to classify, and all the better for that. The innocuous brick shack that houses it prepares you neither for the warmth of its atmosphere nor the ambition of its programming, which spills over from second-run features into unsung foreign documentaries, orchestral improvisation, live music and live film re-enactments (movieoke).

Local film-makers are represented, causes are supported in the listings and discussed in the bar, and its cult films programme, rather than a string of tired slashers, is an expansive roster of excavated gems curated by Clifton video rental shop 20th Century Flicks (3 Richmond Terrace, 20thcenturyflicks.co.uk), an institution in its own right. Open since 1998, the Cube is a slow-burning landmark that was there before many of Stokes Croft's more vociferous hippy initiatives, and will probably outlast them.

• What to see: The Cube Microplex, Dove Street South (cubecinema.com)

Kit Buchan is the singer/bassist of I Said Yes