Cinephilia

The term Cinephilia refers to when someone has a strong interest in cinema, movie theories and movie criticism. Since the silent era, there have been various waves of cinephiles, people with strong interest for cinema and movies. The movie community which may have been best noted in relations to cinephilia, however, are one that was developed during World War II around Paris, France. A major influx of foreign movies, alongside a screening program used with certain local movie clubs, generated interest for world cinema among the intellectual youth culture of the city. This community fostered a strong interest in directors and movies which may have been neglected, forgotten or simply not known in the West. Notable directors of French cinephiles in this period include although are not limited to Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles. This profession has become less connected with movie going due to presence of DVDs and VHS cassettes.

Cinephilia Media

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  The Italian director Federico Fellini, a fashionable figure in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, owed part of his popularity to the support of film critics and the distribution of foreign films in order to accommodate the increasingly sophisticated public.

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  Wong Kar-wai (pictured) is a renowned arthouse film director from Hong Kong known for works such as Chungking Express (1994) and In the Mood for Love (2000).

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  Though his films have met with mixed commercial and critical success, American director Michael Mann (pictured above at Cinémathèque Française in 2009) is often considered to be a major figure of vulgar auteurism by contemporary cinephiles.

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  American director and cinephile Quentin Tarantino often makes references in his work to films and directors he admires.