A café with two Ferraris on the floor, filmed so the espresso gets the same care as the cars.
- Client
- Mille Miglia Café
- Type
- Brand film
- Length
- 0:30
The brand
A café built around a motorsport collection, where the coffee usually ends up as a prop.
Mille Miglia Café takes its name from the Italian road race. Inside, two black Ferraris are parked between the tables, one with a red stripe down its middle, a silver Porsche sits by the wall, a Lamborghini engine stands on a plinth, the walls are racing posters and driver portraits, Ayrton Senna has a frame of his own, a Marlboro helmet sits in a glass case and a bear watches the door.
A place like this gets filmed constantly and nearly always the same way: the car, the memorabilia, a latte with a prancing horse in the foam. The coffee itself is never the subject.
The idea
Give the espresso the same shot list as the Ferraris.
The café’s claim is that it takes both seriously, so the film cuts between them on equal terms. The portafilter locks in, and the next shot is the Lamborghini engine. The espresso pours, and the next shot is a Porsche crest, then Senna. Every step of a coffee has a piece of the collection as its reply.
Nothing is explained. The place is read from its details: the hanging lamps, the Senna frames, a model F1 car standing on a bed of coffee beans.
A Ferrari V12 revs to nearly nine thousand. An espresso pulls at nine bar.
The film
Close on the hands, close on the car, and the room in between.
It opens wide on the sign and the striped Ferrari, then goes close: the bonnet and its stripe, the Carrera Panamericana poster, a wall of helmets, an F1 car on a bed of coffee beans. From there the cuts alternate between the bar and the collection until the latte lands on the counter.
The grade keeps the room warm and dark, so the red of the stripe, the posters and the helmets are the brightest things in it. It ends on the prancing horse drawn in the foam, beside a stack of the café’s postcards.
