Helsinki Documentary Film Festival
SmoKings
Carlo and Gianpaolo Messina started their company Yesmoke in 2000. They sold the world’s most popular brands of cigarettes online at cut-rate prices. Their business did not sit well with Philip Morris: the conglomerate quickly filed a 500-million dollar lawsuit against the brothers. US officials tried to put a stop to Yesmoke products flooding into the country since they considered tax-free cigarettes to be contraband. That only got the Messina brothers going: they started growing their 100-million dollar business and blatantly asking even more trouble.
When Italy deregulated its tobacco monopoly, the Messinas were offered a whole new lifeline. Italy’s entire tobacco production was suddenly in the hands of British American Tobacco and Philip Morris, and Yesmoke became the only considerable domestic manufacturer. Full-on guerrilla war ensued.
Inhaling and exhaling suspense like an old-fashioned gangster pic, smoKings reeks of national pride, distaste for big corporations and bureaucracy, martyrdom, fag breaks while running and wonderful Italian derision. More important than multi-million dollar profits is the opportunity to get in Big Tobacco’s and the government’s face – partly for revenge, but mainly just for the kicks.
Text and translation: Tapio Reinekoski
Languages: Italy, English, GermanSubtitles: English
Director: Michele Fornasero
Country: Italy, Switzerland
Year: 2014
Length: 96 min
Age limit: S
Format: DCP
Cinematography: Paolo Ferrari
Editing: Jesper Osmund, Marco Rezoagli
Audio: Gigi Miniotti
Music: Giorgio Giampa
Production: Simone Catania / Indyca
Showtimes:
Maxim 1: Tuesday 27.1. at 20:15
From the Depths (Dal Profondo)
Depicting Italy’s only coalmine fighting for its life, From the Depths glides like hypnotic poetry hinting at a superhuman force hovering around the mineworkers’ struggle. Tension builds on the threat of the mine being closed – for reasons devoid of any tangible connection to the life underground.
The mine has been a part of workers’ lives for generations. The dream-like atmosphere finds expression in highly stylised imagery and a captivating soundscape of monotony. The dismal facility turns into the film’s central character, which conveys its true power only by drill bits penetrating the ground in a humming silence that weighs on the workers.
Breaking certain principles of the workers’ revolution, the film takes a biblical tone and strongly suggests a presence of the unknown. The true motives of the workers and the owners of the mine, whoever they may be, remain unpronounced, which only makes the cinematic intensity of the struggle in the dark speak volumes.
Text: Lauri Holma / Translation: Tapio Reinekoski
Language: ItalianSubtitles: English
Name in Original Language: Dal Profondo
Director: Valentina Pedicini
Country: Italy
Year: 2013
Length: 72 min
Age limit: S
Format: DCP
Cinematography: Jakob Stark
Editing: Luca Mandrile
Audio: Stefano Grosso, Riccardo Spagnol, Marzia Cardò, Daniela Bassani
Music: Federico Campana
Production: Alessandro Borrelli / La Sarraz Pictures
Showtimes:
Kinopalatsi 6: Saturday 31.1. at 17:30