The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box) () is a 2025 Mexican drama film co-written and directed by Ernesto MartÃÂnez Bucio.
The film centres on five siblings â Vanessa (Laura Uribe Rojas), Victor (Donovan Said), Elsa (Mariapau Bravo Avina), Marisol (Regina Alejandra) and Tomas (Rafael Nieto Martinez) â who are abandoned by their parents Judith (Micaela Gramajo) and Emiliano (Bernardo Gamboa), and must find ways to survive while in the care of their paranoid schizophrenic grandmother Romana (Carmen Ramos).
The film premiered in February 2025 at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.
Jonathan Holland of Screen Daily wrote that "the formal experimentation of The Devil Smokes, is sometimes effective, sometimes not. It delivers most strongly in the oppressive atmospherics as Odei ZabaletaâÂÂs busy camera roams around the cluttered interiors of this shadowy house, taking us on a journey into a claustrophobic, dark little world from which we emerge, blinking and slightly traumatized, at the end."
For Variety, Guy Lodge wrote that "the singed sepia tones favored by MartÃÂnez Bucio and Zabaleta may recall sun-faded or ill-developed images from a family album, to the extent that some shots appear edged with film burn, but the effect isnâÂÂt one of warm nostalgia. Instead, thereâÂÂs a vague end-of-days feel to the filmâÂÂs parched, shadowy visuals, as ZabaletaâÂÂs prowling camera renders the layout of the home smaller with each passing minute. In so many such stories of children in crisis, the hovering presence of social services is presented as a threat; here, the authorities may well be letting the light in."