From April 7 to July 26, the National Film Archive of Japan explores the creative intersection between cinema and graphic design with ‘The Art of Film Posters in Japan: Revisited’. While film posters in Japan were traditionally produced anonymously under the control of studios and distributors, many stand out today as striking works of graphic art in their own right.
Revisiting a landmark exhibition first held in 2012, the show incorporates newly acquired works and brings together more than 90 posters produced mainly between the 1960s and the 1980s, a period of profound innovation in Japanese visual culture.
The exhibition traces the evolution of the medium across four thematic sections. Early post-war posters, often painted in a dramatic illustrative style, reveal how artists sought to capture the emotional essence of films. By the 1960s, a new generation of designers, including Kiyoshi Awazu, Tadanori Yokoo and Makoto Wada, began to challenge conventional promotional aesthetics with bold experimentation. A decisive turning point came with the emergence of the Art Theatre Guild in the 1960s, which encouraged collaborations between filmmakers and avant-garde designers.
Through these vivid and sometimes surprising images, the exhibition reveals another face of Japanese cinema – one that flourished beyond the screen, transforming the humble ad poster into an expressive and enduring art form.
