Il manifesto cinematografico: A ciascuno il suo

On the occasion of the 18th edition of the Napoli Film Festival, the Guildenstern Gallery (Vico Equense - Naples) is glad to present the exhibition called “The film poster: to each his own".

A wide selection of film posters, large and small, coming from all the world will be exhibited in order to compare different formats, different graphic styles and different cultures of various countries.
The international distribution houses used to diversify style and kind of image related to the advertising material for the different countries, availing themselves, in many cases, of local designers capable of graphically translating the consciousness of the places where the film would be shown.
The good poster designer had to be a linking bridge between the production requirements and the audience language; at the same time, he or she had to illustrate and summarize, in a limited, two-dimensional space, stories, spirit, emotions and faces of a film.

A special interest will be given to posters coming from the well-known “Polish poster school” that was born after the Second World War: These were often amazing works with a remarkable expressive refinement and iconic powerfulness, the result of a graphic (never photographic) and symbolic interpretation of the film, the expression of a deep cultural research related to the dissent of people who cohabited for years with the oppression of the Stalin dictatorship.

Whereas in America the production and advertising promotion were followed by the private major companies according to pure market trends; in Poland, where the museums were closed and the film industry was put under state control, posters were created by the greatest national artists and used to spread propaganda messages. The result was the production of gloomy, dreamlike images full of contradictions, but sometimes with that kind of irony sometimes aiming at secretly showing the devastating socio-cultural reality of that time.

Most of the posters exhibited refer to the time between the end of the Fifties and the beginning of the Seventies, but there will be also a few examples of new, recent graphical productions such as the “world posters”- limited series of designer’s silk-screen printings coming from the U.S.A, which are greatly sought after by collectors –that propose the greatest film classics with a new style.

Enjoy the film.