Cuban posters in the memory of the world

Culture

Cuban posters in the memory of the world

Marry

June 1, 2023

A few days ago we heard this news, and now it’s time to enjoy it: the movie posters made by ICAIC between 1960 and 1980 were declared “Memory of the World” to bring together the vast archive of UNESCO known as “Memory of the World”. According to Luciano Castillo, director of Cinemateca, this is the second time Cinemateca de Cuba has received the aforementioned transcendent title. The first proposal endorsed by UNESCO concerned the Latin American ICAIC Newscasts.

At the press conference announcing the happy news, Cinematheque Specialist Sara Vega noted that publicists, designers, artists and art historians have been associated with the ICAIC from the very beginning in the creation of non-public posters. Cuban films, but also for foreign works, and thus created what is now known as the Cuban school of film poster, turning it into a medium of distribution and communication that is not only effective but also artistic.

Coinciding with UNESCO’s designation of the period of “maximum splendor” of the Cuban film poster, if you describe it with the same phrase used by specialists Sara Vega, Alicia Garcia and Claudio Sotolongo in the book citizen postercorresponds to two decades, covered by the period 1960-1979, when a real revolution in the field of fine arts took place in Cuba.

During these first two decades of ICAIC, masterpieces signed by Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, the author of several posters, were identified in the collective memory with some Cuban or foreign films. Just to mention those who accompanied the first ICAIC film, Revolution storiesTomas Gutierrez Alea, for a transcendental documentary For the first time, Octavio Cortazar; and also to that masterpiece of fantasy which The Adventures of Juan Quinn QuinnJulio Garcia Espinosa.

Triptych Lucy, created by the artist, draftsman, designer and photographer Raul Martinez, best known for his work with the collective hero, where he illustrated the enthusiasm, optimism, utopia of the future of harmony, equality and progress. This poster has become as powerful and transcendent a symbol of the new Cuban cinema as the aforementioned film itself, but Raul Martinez made other significant ones, such as eradication (1965), which emphasizes typographic elements in kinetic function.

In the same period that UNESCO is now highlighting, another artist is associated with ICAIC, Servando Cabrera, author of a beautiful poster that accompanied Teresa’s portrait (1979) by Pastor Vega, as well as veteran designer Alfredo Rostgaard, brought their ingenuity to the documentary. Now!Santiago Alvarez. And René Askui also appears in the list of generic posters with two works made for Last supperhistorical feature film by Tomas Gutiérrez Aléa and Rita, about an important documentary directed by Oscar Valdes. Azcuy was also the author of the famous poster for the French film. stolen kissesone of the most recognizable among those produced by ICAIC in the 60s, except that in this text we prefer to highlight Cuban posters for Cuban films, because everything good and ours should be highlighted, even with inevitable repetitions.

Azcuy has always been noted for his expressive sobriety, enlarged photography to highlight a detail that takes on a symbolic character, in addition to working almost always in black and white with an unobtrusive and significant intervention of other colors. This is the case with the posters mentioned above as well as the posters Cyclone (1966) Santiago Alvarez and Until a certain point (1983), a film by Tomás Gutiérrez Aléa whose graphic advancement evokes two key elements, the hook and the seagull, in a love story set in the port of Havana.

In addition to the above list – bear in mind that we are only mentioning here the works of the great Cuban designers who accompanied national productions – it is worth emphasizing the merits of three more posters: First machete charge (Raul Oliva) Death to the invader! (Rafael Morante) and General José’s Odyssey (Antonio Perez, Nico). In the first, Oliva is delighted not only with the kinetic illusion, but also with the color and aesthetics of pop art.

Morante, for his part, conceived the poster Death to the invader! with the same speed with which war reporters work, because the film had to have an effective promotion for the premiere of thought from the immediacy of events. The same designer took care of the calmer graphics that accompanied ballet story (1962) the twelve Chairs (1962) and Cuba 58 (1962) and Alba of Cuba (1963).

Although they do not refer to the period allocated by UNESCO as “Memory of the World”, it should be said: in the 80s and 90s worthy works were still created, but with a more transparent, less intellectual meaning, like the perceived Art Nouveau influence poster , intended for Cecilia (1981) by Antonio Fernandez Reboiro, who thus completed an outstanding work for the Institute, which included graphics for documentaries. we are music (1964) Osiel del Toa (1966) 79 springs (1970) and a troupe of colorful pipes flooding the space with color in Arcano and his wonders (1975), in addition to live-action films Chiron (1972) and Brigadier (1977), incl.

May this text also serve as an affirmation of our satisfaction with the universal recognition of one of the most outstanding cultural achievements of the late 20th century: the Cuban film poster. And this is not just me saying, as just recognized by UNESCO, whose Memory of the World program has been promoting and coordinating, since 1992, the preservation and access to the most relevant documentary historical heritage for the peoples of the world, as well as encouraging interest in its preservation.