04/03/2025 - We talked to the two organisers of the festival dedicated to Hollywood films from 1930 to 1934, and the empowering female narratives they spotlight

l-r: Milja Mikkola and Caroline Cassin

Originated in London, the Women & Cocaine Film Festival has returned to Helsinki for its 3rd edition in the last weekend of February, once again celebrating the ladies of pre-code Hollywood and their scandalous behaviour – on and off screen. We talked to founders Caroline Cassin and Milja Mikkola on this occasion.

Cineuropa: Where did your affection for these glamorous women – and cocaine! – even come from?
Caroline Cassin: I started [this screening series] in January 2019 in London. I’ve always had this passion for pre-code cinema – I just didn’t realise I could make a career out of it. The name of the event comes from a quote by Tallulah Bankhead: “My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine.” It was always a favorite of mine and it encapsulates the whole philosophy around the event, this idea of women being the powerful ones. Later, I tried to copyright it, but you can’t copyright the word “cocaine” in the UK. Obviously!

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I started doing it once a month, at The Cinema Museum, and I wouldn’t just show a film, I wanted to contextualise it for a contemporary audience and help them understand how important these women were, what they did and what they represented. Life comes in cycles: women are losing their rights all over the world, so it’s important to remember those who were there at the very beginning. I use a lot of their quotes to give them their voice back. They were all under contract, scrutinised and controlled by men who ran the studios. But they were pushing back. 

During the pandemic, I moved the event online. I could reach international audiences, even before I met Milja. She really loved the whole idea and, of course, the name, which is such a draw for people. She asked me to do it in Helsinki.

Milja Mikkola: At first, we wanted to start in March 2020, which is when everything got cancelled. I still have that poster! 

Do you think you could do it in other countries as well? And once you decided to bring it to Finland, were your tempted to look for local films from the 1930s?
CC: I’ve approached film museums in other countries and suggested it to them. You need to have a strong film culture, which I think Finland does. You also need a lot of English speakers, because the sound in these films isn’t always very clear. It would be nice to branch out and I think it’s something that could definitely happen in the future. I can see us having these local editions. 

Hollywood, in its first two decades, had more women working there than ever since. They were this industry’s biggest audience, its biggest stars. As we know, it all went backwards, but now there’s some sort of renaissance again. You see lots of women leading films and being big box-office draws.

How do you choose these films? From My Sin to Morocco and Working Girls, which you have been showing this year, these are all different stories.
CC: I’ve given myself a very short window of films to choose from: it’s always from 1930 to 1934. I love Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and I started by choosing their films. They’re not always playing powerful women. Sometimes, they are love interests, and that’s where my introductions come in. I mention what they did off screen. I try to balance the programme with big names to draw the audience in and that gives me an opportunity to slip in some rare titles that have a stronger storyline in terms of female empowerment. 

MM: During our first year in Helsinki, we went with stars: Bette Davis, Garbo, Mae West. This is our third edition, so we could go a bit wild and introduce not-so-familiar names. Some of these films have a male lead, but we look at them from a different perspective. 

CC: If you take Love Me Tonight, you’d think it’s just another soppy love story, where the woman “devalues” herself in the end. She’s a princess and ends up with a tailor. But when you really study it, she’s claiming love on her own terms. She’s subverting traditional gender roles by going after her man.

Most people don’t expect these films to be shocking or timely, but they can be. 
CC: That’s what we’re here to show: back in this period of pre-code specifically, films were fun, fast, sexy and progressive. They dealt with a lot of themes in such a sophisticated and sensitive way. The very first film I showed was Baby Face with Barbara Stanwyck. That’s the film that will get you hooked on pre-code.

MM: In Helsinki, it was Mae West’s She Done Him Wrong. Many people have forgotten her, but she’s unlike anybody else when it comes to that wit. 

CC: It’s a testament to the strength of their work and their commitment to art that we still find these films really funny and shocking, and scandalous. In Baby Face, you get a character who essentially sleeps her way up to the top of a bank and causes a lot of chaos along the way. People are not expecting to be shocked, because you think: “It’s a film from the 1930s. How naughty can it be?” They couldn’t really show anything, but it tells you something about the power of suggestion. I think people are appreciating it again because, as you’ve probably noticed, we also have a really young audience.

What you tell the viewers before and after each screening is a fun part of this event. The lives of these stars were so outrageous.
CC: I want to give them a bit of theory, but I also want it to be very gossipy. Like I said, it’s about giving agency back to those women. It makes them real. Women back then actually were having fun and living their lives on their own terms. There was a real person behind this glamorous image, a person who had to work hard to survive. And that should be celebrated. 

Milja, you also organise Viva Erotica [a festival dedicated to erotica and sex], where you show older films, too. Why is it so important to you? 
MM: I definitely get my thrills out of finding these copies and getting them onto a big screen. I’ve been lucky: both events have found their audience. But to do this type of special event, you also need to find a venue that’s willing to take the risk – like WHS Teatteri Union – and that’s taking part in the selection process. You can’t do it alone. From an industry point of view, we are all fighting for the survival of film archives and copies. Of course, there are restorations being done, but that’s only a fraction of these films. It’s our quest to find these copies, which is… 

CC: …An adventure. Quite a dangerous adventure, because by sticking to film, we are restricting ourselves. But it also means the choices we make are more thought-out. Milja is all about film and showing a 35mm print does add that extra special element. It’s nice that we’ve combined specific areas of our passions and brought them together to make this festival.