CINEMANIA (2002) is a documentary about the culture of intense cinephilia in New York City that reveals the impassioned world of five wildly obsessed movie buffs. They spend their waking hours in darkened theaters, and now, these full-time audience members step from their seats onto the big screen in this entertaining documentary which celebrates their obsessions – from the grandiosity of their aesthetic dreams to the austerity of their domestic realities. In Cinemania, the Silver Screen's biggest fans become the true stars. This is the story of their lives, their memories, their unbending habits and the films they love.
Directed by Angela Christlieb & Stephen Kijak
A Hanfgarn & Ufer production, in cooperation with Loop Filmworks
"A crisp, intelligent film" Stephen Holden, The New York Times
"NO WAY!!!... It's like My Big Fat Greek Wedding for our crowd, better entitled My Big Fat Movie Obsession." Film Threat
"Unsettling docu about the civilians who virtually surrender everything else in life to attend up to five films a day. The non-narrated "Cinemania" is an unsparing, if light touched, look at obsession, denial and where to find the cheap seats in Manhattan... The soundtrack´s French popsongs, all about cinephilia, add a dose of fun, as does the perfect finish, which finds the five protags in a small screening room, commenting snarkily on a rough cut of the pic we´re watching."
Ken Eisner, Variety