Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 28: Wed Jan 28

Cinemania (Christleib/Kijak, 2002): Nickel Cinema, 6.30pm

A group of obsessive cinephiles navigate New York City in search of screenings, cataloging every film and obsessing over schedules, stars, and trivia. Their lives are consumed by cinema, blending daily routine, personal quirks, and unrelenting devotion to the art form. A charming and eccentric documentary, Cinemania celebrates obsession, fandom, and the transformative power of movies, offering an intimate glimpse into lives lived entirely through the lens of film.

Chicago Reader review:
This 2002 American-German documentary by Angela Christlieb and Stephen Kijak isn’t very popular among normal cinephiles (if such a term isn’t already an oxymoron) because it exhibits five of the most extreme and dysfunctional cinemaniacs in Manhattan, figures already somewhat legendary among patrons of the Walter Reade Theater, the Museum of Modern Art, Film Forum, and similar venues. Roberta Hill, a pack rat who saves ticket stubs and flyers, was banned from one of her haunts after assaulting an usher who tore her ticket in half, while Harvey Schwartz, who lives with his mother in the Bronx, memorizes the precise running times of everything he sees. The filmmakers aren’t exactly cruel, but they focus on compulsion rather than passion, which by implication tends to tarnish the more intellectual and scholarly members of the breed.
Joanthan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.