CINEMANIA

Year: 2002
USA: Wellspring
Cast: Jack Angstreich, Eric Chadbourne, Bill Heidbreder, Roberta Hill, Harvey Schwartz, Richard Aidala, Tia Bonacore, David Schwartz, Michael Slipp
Directors: Angela Christlieb, Stephen Kijak
Country: Germany
USA: 80 mins
USA Release Date: 16 May 2003 (Limited Release - New York)

Synopsis

CINEMANIA is the highly-anticipated 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 new documentary that 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.

The five people who are the 'stars' of CINEMANIA - Jack, Eric, Harvey, Bill and Roberta- are not meant to represent all film-buffs everywhere. Nor are they the exclusive representatives of New York's film-buff community - this community is vast and has its own rich history - and who doesn't in some way consider themselves a film-buff? What interested us about these people was the degree to which their love of film has seemed to eclipse all other concerns in their lives - and what filmmaker cannot understand this kind of blind passion?