By Maria Esteves – August 29, 2014

The U.S. theatrical release of WEB JUNKIE, directed by Israeli documentarians Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shlam immediately followed a Q&A session with Film Forum programmer Mike Maggiore at Film Forum, New York, Wednesday, August 6, 2014. Questions posed to the filmmakers by Maggiore and the audience included: How long did it take to make the film? What inspired the making of the film? Hilla, how did you come into this project? Of all the boys in the camp, how did you choose which cases to profile? What’s your opinion about Internet addiction?

Technology has impacted and changed our life in the 21st century from mainframes to client/servers to cloud computing. In China, the number one health threat to the teenage population is Internet addition. It is considered as “digital heroin,” according to Professor Tao Ran, pioneer of Internet addiction treatment in China. As a journalist with 18+ years experience in information technology who spent over 10 hours daily at university computer labs on software projects, it behooves me how fascinated and self absorbed I was as a teenager to conquer my programming projects.

WEB JUNKIE is a striking and compelling documentary about teenage Internet gaming addiction and the effectiveness of the treatment program founded by Professor Tao Ran at Daxing military style boot camp, in the Beijing Military General Hospital in China. The film takes you on a raw and passionate journey exploring family dynamics, medical and psychosocial progress of three teenagers: Hope (Xi Wang), who spent 300 hours on World of Warcaft (WoW) Internet gaming; Hacker age 15, who inhibits distrust and despair due to Internet addiction; and Nicky addicted to Free Fantasy Internet gaming.

Today, Beijing Military General Hospital is closed. However, Nicky went back to school, graduated and is working; Hacker is studying at the Arts University in Beijing and Hope lives in California, U.S.A.

WEB JUNKIE, directed by Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shlam | Kino Lorber | USA/Israel | 2014 | 74 mins. | Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles. Watch Trailer

U.S. Theatrical Release of WEB JUNKIE, Israeli documentarians
Shosh Shlam, left, and Hilla Medalia, Film Forum, New York,
August 6, 2014.