In the history of graphic design, the film poster has repeatedly exemplified graphic innovation. The first constructivist posters by the Stenberg brothers challenged viewing habits in the late 1920s, as did the radical, succinct film advertisements by Jan Tschichold. The Polish school of poster art, with exponents such as Henryk Tomaszewski and Roman Cieślewicz, produced iconic film posters in the postwar era, and Cuban designers, including Antonio Reboiro and Ñiko, followed suit after 1959. Simultaneously, in the former Czechoslovakia, the likes of Milan Grygar, Karel Vaca and Josef Vylet’al helped the film poster gain international recognition. In all three countries, the lack of economic pressure allowed such creative power to flourish. In Germany, film distributors such as Neue Filmkunst Walter Kirchner or Atlas-Film prompted a new aesthetic by commissioning Hans Hillmann or Dorothea Fischer-Nosbisch.

The works presented in this publication illustrate an alternative to the Hollywood film poster with its canonical motifs and pompous spectacle. The unorthodox visual language of these “other” film posters largely dispenses with star portraits and film stills. Subtly poetic, and often ambiguous, films are interpreted individually, the visual material is creatively defamiliarized and the content consolidated into symbols. Up to this day, individual designers continue to celebrate the film poster as an autonomous artistic medium.