Cinemania

Stephen Kijak and Angela Christlieb's 2002 documentary follows five film obsessives living in New York. These people watch between two and five films a day, reach thousands in a year and organise their lives around screening times. None of them works in cinema; most live on limited means and put everything they have into tickets. The film neither mocks them nor tries to protect them, showing how the obsession is bound up with loneliness, dysfunction and at times aggression. One participant is astonishingly well equipped with archival knowledge, another can do little beyond remember what he has seen. The film asks what is lost at the point where cinephilia becomes an identity. Who it's for: viewers who like film culture and documentaries about obsession. Who it's not for: anyone looking for recommendations; this is about the audience, not the films.