THE TOBACCONIST is a lovely story about a young man and his friendship with Sigmund Freud during the Nazi occupation of Vienna. The film will be available virtually this Friday, July 10, on kinomarquee.com, and your download will support your favorite art theater.
Seventeen-year-old Franz travels to Vienna to become an apprentice at a tobacco shop. There he meets Sigmund Freud (played by Bruno Ganz), who is a regular customer, and over time the two form a unique friendship. When Franz falls in love with the free spirited dancer Anezka, he seeks advice from the renowned psychoanalyst, who admits that the female sex is as much of a mystery to him as it is to Franz. As the political conditions in Austria worsen with the Nazis’ arrival in Vienna, the lives of Franz, Freud, and Anezka change dramatically. Each must decide whether to stay or to flee.
THE TOBACCONIST is also an ode to the Hoyo de Monterrey Cuban cigar, an artful mix of history and imagination, a gift of beautiful scenery and, unintentionally perhaps, a warning about what life becomes under a dictatorship.
This film is 113 minutes long, in German with English subtitles. It’s directed by Nikolaus Leytner and presented by Menemsha Films.
TheFumeofsighs.com 