(NEW YORK, NY) -- New Jersey filmmaker Alan Del Tufo will have the World Premiere of his independently produced TV pilot, The Cineplex, at the 2025 Big Apple Film Festival on Monday, May 12, 2025. The Cineplex is about a quirky staff at a local movie theater that is forced to contend with a by the book, corporate takeover.
It's a subject Alan knows well, having worked at a pair of movie theaters in Bergen County over the course of a few years.
Welcome to The Cineplex a once glorious, but now crumbling small town movie theater with a quirky, tight knit staff who run the place more like a dysfunctional family than a business. From the mischievous ushers to the eccentric maintenance worker, to the security guard who takes his job way too seriously, The Cineplex has always been more about passion for movies... not profit.
Enter Colossal Enterprises, a massive corporate entertainment chain that buys the movie theater. With their sterile branding and absurdly specific protocols, Colossal Enterprises, or CE as they call themselves, is determined to turn The Cineplex into a cookie-cutter multiplex. However, they didnʼt count on the staffʼs unshakable bond or their penchant for hijinks.
The quirky crew clashes with the buttoned-up CE management team each week, using everything within their power to maintain their beloved theater's charm. Whether it's keeping their indie film series alive or hosting a disastrous employee karaoke night, the team proves that their messy, heartfelt chaos is what keeps the community coming back.
"Seeing all of these characters come to life was an absolute blast for me!" said the filmmaker. "It was almost like I got to go back in a time machine and revisit my old stomping grounds with all of my friends. I had to make sure everything was as authentic as possible... from the way the concession workers would scoop the popcorn out of the machines, to the technique we used to sweep the floors. The actors were great too, it’s so much fun to work with talented people. They brought so much to each character and I felt like they had alot of fun doing so. And my producers and crew are all very close friends of mine. There’s nothing really better than working with your friends."
Kevin Michael Brennan and Wasim Azeez are the two leads. They play ushers in supervisor positions. Pauline Brown plays the theater's newly hired manager, who inherits this band of misfits. Emma DeWitt plays their badass concession stand worker and Kelsey McClarnon plays the overzealous security guard.
"At this point we have only shot the pilot episode," he explained. "In a perfect world the show would live on a streaming service... like Netflix or HBO/MAX."
The trailer portrays the movie theater as a great setting for a tv series. Thoughts of Cheers and The Office came to my mind as I watched it. So, it's no surprise that The Office is among Del Tufo's favorite tv shows - a list that includes Happy Days and The Sopranos.
"If I had to describe The Cineplex I would say it’s Office Space meets American Pie," he explained.
Creating a pilot for a television show is difficult enough, but doing it independently adds additional issues to contend with.
"The most difficult part was the time constraints," noted Del Tufo. "We were working on a very tight budget and filming at a real, working movie theater. The theater was great, though... we filmed at Westwood Cinemas in Westwood, New Jersey. They were extremely accommodating and some of the nicest people you could meet. I even got their house manager to be in a few of the shots."
Del Tufo has worked on television shows and short films, but is very interested in tv right now. The original idea for The Cineplex was to be a feature film, but when he revisited the idea a few years later he saw its potential as a television show. The pilot has been short-listed for a few other film festivals and they hope to be able to announces its West Coast premiere in the near future.
The filmmaker grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey and found his calling in college.
"Grew up an athlete and really didn’t find the arts until college," he recalled. "My first stop was Bergen Community College where I was a member of the Drama club and starred in a few of their theater productions. My first exposure to this field was as an actor. I studied the Meisner technique and signed with the Fifi Oscard agency in their young adult division. My biggest role was when I played Sammy 'the bull' Gravano’s childhood best friend in an NBC mini-series titled Witness to the Mob. I later went on to study film production at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, and primarily moved to the other side of the camera."
The screening takes place Monday, May 12th at Look Dine-In Cinemas: Theater #5, showtime is 3:00pm. The movie theater is located at 657 W 57th St, New York, NY 10019. Tickets are available for purchase online.
The 2025 Big Apple Film Festival takes place May 12-15 at Look Dine-In Cinemas in New York City. For more information on the festival, click here.
