Film at CAT - The Tobacconist

“The Tobacconist,” is a tender, heart-breaking story about one young man and his friendship with the founding father of psychoanalysis during the Nazi occupation of an Austrian town. Seventeen-year-old Franz journeys to Vienna to apprentice at a tobacco shop. There he meets Sigmund Freud (Bruno Ganz), a regular customer, and over time the two very different men form a singular friendship. When Franz falls desperately in love with the music-hall dancer Anezka, he seeks advice from the renowned psychoanalyst who admits that the female sex is as big a mystery to him as it is to Franz. As political and social conditions dramatically worsen with the Nazis’ arrival in Vienna, Franz, Freud, and Anezka are swept into the maelstrom of events. Each has a big decision to make: to stay or to flee? The “Tobacconist” was a sold-out film at the 2020 Rehoboth Beach Jewish Film Festival.  [2018, Austria/Germany, in Czech and German with English subtitles, 113 min, Not Rated]. Venue: Cinema Art Theater. Presenter: Rehoboth Beach Film Society.