Smokers Only

Colour, 35mm
Argentina, 2001, 88 min
Section: Forum of Independents

Synopsis

Reni is a young girl who plays in a small local alternative rock band which performs gigs in nightclubs from time to time. Andrés is a prostitute who has sex with other men whenever and wherever he can. The two meet by chance in the streets of modern Buenos Aires, they feel the chemistry between them, spend the night together and then start roaming the city. An unusual love story from the Argentine capital about alienated twenty-year-olds looking for love, adventure and easy cash. But money can’t replace love, and love can’t be bought.

About the director

Verónica Chen (b. 1969, Buenos Aires) began her film career as an editor and director of photography for a number of television ads and video clips. After completing her film studies she was assistant editor on approximately fifteen films directed, among others, by Fernando Spiner, Pino Solanas and Marcho Bechis. Between 1997 and 2000 she edited Daniel Burman’s A Chrysabthemum Bursts in Cincoesquinas (Un crisantemo estalla en cincoesquinas) and Waiting for the Messiah (Esperando al Mesias), and Marco Bechi’s Garage Olimpo (with Jacopo Quadri) She has also made several shorts. Vagón fumador is her first feature-length film.