Film
Washington Jewish Film Festival: The Tobacconist (2018), dir. Nikolaus Leytner

Fri, 09/20/2019 -
Thu, 09/26/2019
Edlavitch DC JCC

The Tobacconist (Der Trafikant)
Germany/Austria, 2018, 108 Min., Director:  Nikolaus Leytner, Screenplay: Klaus Richter and Nikolaus Leytner, after the 2012 novel of the same name by Robert Seethaler

Encore performances of JxJ’s Sold-Out Closing Night Film

Starring the recently passed Bruno Ganz (Downfall, Wings of Desire) as Sigmund Freud and based on the international bestseller by Robert Seethaler.

A tender, heart-breaking story about one young man and his friendship with Sigmund Freud during the Nazi occupation of Vienna.

Seventeen-year-old Franz journeys to Vienna to apprentice at a tobacco shop. There he meets Sigmund Freud (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 in Austria 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?

Presented in cooperation with the Edlavitch Jewish Community Center of Washington, DC.
Buy Tickets Nikolaus Leytner was born in 1957 in Graz (Austria). From 1977 to 1984 he studied directing (with Alfons Stummer and Axel Corti) and screenwriting (with Harald Zusanek) at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Department of Film and Television, in Vienna. Since then, he works as a freelance director and author for cinema and television. In 1989 he was one of the co-founders of the film production company Allegro Film. In addition to his involvement with film, Leytner has also directed the theater (The Nervesaw, Theater in der Josefstadt, in 2000, among others). In 2009, he co-founded the Academy of Austrian Film. Leytner lives and works in Vienna.


Presented as a part of the Washington Jewish Film Festival, a collaboration with the Edlavitch Jewish Community Center of Washington.