Cinema Dreams

Cinema Dreams: Art for the seventh art

Before the 1960s, Cuban posters were essentially commercial and influenced by the United States. However, after Fidel Castro came to power, it became a political and cultural instrument. In March 1959, after the revolution, the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) was created. This cultural organization played a central role in the production of film posters, inspiring the creation of original works signed by their authors and giving rise to a unique style and a distinctive graphic school. The cultural posters were mostly dedicated to cinema and documentaries, which Fidel Castro considered essential tools for educating the Cuban people.

Under Castro's leadership, Cuban designers enjoyed total freedom, freeing themselves from the American model, which focused on the name of the film, the main actors and a scene from the film, a model still used in many countries. This freedom allowed Cuban designers to reinterpret the films independently and go beyond traditional graphic codes. Influenced by modernist movements, they were inspired by Pop Art, kinetic art, surrealist collage and psychedelia. American graphic design, especially comics, magazine covers and artists such as Saul Bass and Andy Warhol, also left their mark.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Cuba imported many Western films, mainly European. Cuban designers adopted screen printing, which has become a feature of Cuban graphic culture. This process, similar to artistic screen printing, involved the use of stencils between the ink and the support. Each artist conceived the design, created their colors and produced the poster, which strongly influenced the style of the posters. Technical restrictions, such as the size of the print, and the limitation of volumes to large areas of bright colors with sharp outlines also shaped the graphic style of Cuban posters.

Jean-François Couvreur
Curator

The unprecedented exhibition held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, "Cinema Dreams: Arte para a Sétima Arte", should inspire designers and delight cinephiles by bringing together these two artistic strands.

Movie posters are similar in most parts of the world, but in Fidel Castro's Cuba, artists had total freedom to create new images of classics from the seventh century. Encouraged to experiment with abstract, minimalist and symbolic forms, designers made illustrations as striking as the advertised films themselves.

Here we have a rich collection of these records, which, through incredible drawings, reveal peculiar ways of looking. This creative diversity was influenced by Pop Art, psychedelia and European and Oriental art.

Most of the posters were made entirely by hand, guaranteeing rich texture, intense colors and authentic features. Recognized internationally by UNESCO for their value and importance, Cuban film posters are notorious for their creativity and unquestionable graphic quality. 

For all these reasons, they areconsidered important pieces of art, not only as advertising tools, but also for their cultural relevance.

By bringing this significant exhibition to visitors, MON ratifies its mission: to collect and exhibit visual arts, architecture and design, providing transformative experiences and dialogues with the public. 

Juliana Vellozo Almeida Vosnika
CEO of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum

Cuban film posters have been recognized by Unesco and included in the "Memory of the World" register, a distinction that highlights their heritage value and cultural importance. This international recognition highlights the unique aesthetic and impact of Cuban graphic design on the world of cinema.

This inscription recognizes the artistic and cultural contribution of Cuban posters, which have accompanied Cuban cinema since its inception.

Influence on future generations: UNESCO recognition is seen as a source of inspiration for young creators and designers, who can be inspired by the ingenuity and graphic quality of these works.

Importance of digitization and preservation: the "Memory of the World" inscription also highlighted the need to digitize and preserve these posters for future generations.

Unesco, as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, plays a key role in promoting international cooperation and safeguarding world heritage.

He signs his posters as Bachs

Eduardo Muñoz Bachs was born in 1937 in Valencia, Spain.
​His parents, who fought against fascism, fled Spain and Europe after Franco and Hitler's victories. They settled in Cuba in 1941.
Since childhood, Eduardo has been interested in drawing.
​In 1952, he began as an apprentice artist at the CMQ-TV radio and TV network. In 1957, he worked on animated films for an advertising agency. He joined ICAIC in 1959, in the animation department, and in 1960 he created the institution's first poster, for the movie Historias de la Revolución. In 1961, he moved to the poster department. In the following years, he also worked for other government agencies. In 1970, he designed the cover of Cuba Magazine.
​Bachs was not only a prolific movie poster designer - he also wrote and illustrated numerous children's books and created record covers.
​In the 1980s, he collaborated with magazines such as El Muñe, Cómicos, Bohemia, Prisma and Revolución y Cultura.
​His movie posters have a very personal stamp, breaking with traditional graphic codes. He created his own style, full of color and comic naivety. He is Cuba's most prolific poster artist and is considered one of Cuba's greatest graphic artists. He died in 2001 in Havana.

He signs his posters as azcuy

René Azcuy Cárdenas was born in Havana in 1939. At the age of 16, he began his artistic studies at the National School of Fine Arts in San Alejandro and then at the Higher School of Arts and Crafts in Havana. He began his career as an illustrator in advertising agencies.
​In 1963, one of the founders of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry (ICAIC) invited him to join the team of graphic designers, entrusting him with the creation of advertisements and press releases for the national film distributor. He quickly went on to create movie posters and political propaganda.
​His first posters used colored illustrations, but in 1970 he found his characteristic graphic style, which earned him the nickname "Negro Azcuy" because he worked almost exclusively in black and white. He used photographs from magazines, cut out in close-up and with strong contrast.
​In 1983, he joined the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), linked to the Ministry of Culture, and participated in the drafting of Law 106 for the social improvement of Cuban artists, enacted in 1988.
​In 1992, he moved to Mexico, where he dedicated himself exclusively to teaching at the Universidad Benemérita de Puebla before reuniting with his family in Miami, where he passed away in 2019.

He signs his posters as julioeloy

He was born in Placetas, Villa Clara, Cuba, on April 12, 1943.
​He began his career at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry (ICAIC).
​In the 1970s, at the height of the Cuban Revolution, a new type of communicator emerged: the graphic designer. The art of the poster, with its use of color, collages, contrasted photographs, blunt texts and slogans, has become an essential means of communication.
​Mesa helped make the movie poster an innovative form of expression, breaking with traditional advertising styles. His work has been exhibited all over the world and is studied by art students at various universities in Latin America.
​In the 1950s, he studied commercial and architectural painting at the Garcés Academy in Havana. Between 1960 and 1962, he attended the National School of Art Teachers and, from 1963 to 1966, he studied at the San Alejandro National School of Plastic Arts. He majored in graphic design at the School of Design and, between 1975 and 1976, studied Art History at the Faculty of Arts and Letters at the University of Havana.
​He has worked mainly with set design, graphic design and painting.
​Between 1962 and 1969, he was a set designer at the ICAIC. From 1969 to 1991, he was art director of the magazine Cine Cubano.
​Between 1986 and 1991, he worked as a designer at the Domingo Ravenet Art Gallery. In 1990, he became a member of UNEAC.
​He lived and worked for a time in Spain and since 1991 has lived in Austin, Texas (USA).

He signs his posters as ñiko

Born in 1941 and naturalized Mexican in 2003, he grew up in Cuba. He graduated in Art History from the University of Havana and began his career in 1957 at an advertising agency.
​He soon went on to create political posters for revolutionary campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s.
​In 1968, he joined the ICAIC, where he created one of his most iconic posters - one of the few to use photography - with the famous portrait of Che Guevara by Alberto Korda, multiplying Che's image against the red background of the revolution.
​That same year, he also produced posters for Cuban and foreign films as an independent artist.
​In the early 1970s, he officially joined ICAIC's team of designers.
​With a unique and apparently simple style, ñiko has taught graphic design at universities in Cuba, Spain and Mexico from the 1970s to the present day.
​With the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989, Cuba faced a serious economic and social crisis, and the production of public posters virtually ceased.
​To continue his practice, he accepted an invitation to teach at the University of Veracruz in Mexico and left Cuba for good.

He is a member of the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (ICOGRADA) and has held the Cuban National Culture Award since 1983. In 2018, his works were declared Cultural Heritage of the Cuban Nation.
​He is also a member of the National System of Art Creators of FONCA (Mexico). In 2021, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Veracruz.
​He currently lives and works in Zoncuantla, Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico.
​According to ñiko, a poster is a whisper, not a shout - it should convince, seduce and catch the eye.
​For him, the poster is demonstrative, suggestive, reflective and also a form of entertainment: "The poster must, above all, communicate the artist's personal passion. He anticipates and perpetuates the images of his time; he creates and participates in history".
He says that if there is a secret in the poster, it lies in the ideas, in the communication, even before the aesthetic process:
"Although beauty is also a means of achieving and affirming what we have to say."

Sign your posters with your full name: Servando Cabrera Moreno

Servando was, above all, a painter.
​He graduated from the San Alejandro Academy and also studied at the Art Student's League in New York and La Grande Chaumière in Paris. He exhibited for the first time at the Lyceum in Havana in 1943 and took part in various biennials in Venice, Mexico and São Paulo, as well as several group exhibitions.
​He has won numerous awards and his works are in museums, galleries and private collections all over the world.
​He was a close friend of Alfredo Guevara (founder of ICAIC and the Havana Latin American Film Festival), with whom he became even closer after meeting in Paris. They worked together on the documentary El Mégano (1954), together with filmmakers influenced by Italian neorealism.
​In 1979, Guevara commissioned Servando to design the poster for the Cuban film Retrato de Teresa, by Pastor Vega.
​As a tribute to Servando, the poster for the 35th edition of the Latin American Film Festival featured his work "Moncada" and "Cordillera", two of his most expressive paintings, exhibited on the ninth floor of the ICAIC, as designed by Guevara.
​During the so-called "gray period" of the 1970s - marked by repression of homosexuality and cultural experimentalism - Guevara was an important supporter of Servando.

He signs his posters as Reboiro

Antonio Fernández Reboiro was born in Cuba in 1935 to Spanish immigrants. He studied medicine for six years before turning to architecture and design at the University of Havana.
​He began his career at the magazine Havana Picture Guide and collaborated with architect Ricardo Porro on the construction of Cuba's National Art School.
​In 1963, he was hired by ICAIC's artistic director, who was putting together a new team of designers.
​For two decades, he produced countless posters. The ICAIC offered artists a space of creative freedom, and Reboiro developed a visual imagination influenced by Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Op Art, Pop Art and psychedelia. His posters often distanced themselves from the content of the films, functioning as visual enigmas with symbolic, abstract, figurative or surrealist elements.
​Its main characteristic was the explosive and artistic use of bright, vivid colors.
​Persecuted for his homosexuality, he went into exile in 1982 during an exhibition at the Cannes Film Festival. He lived in France and then Spain, where he continued his career creating posters and visual identities for theaters, operas, ballets and festivals.
​In 1998, he set up his graphics studio in Miami. In the 2010s, he devoted himself entirely to painting.
​He passed away in 2020.
​His works are in the collections of museums such as the MoMA (New York), the Museum of Advertising and the Pompidou Center (Paris), the National Gallery (London), the Poster Museum (Warsaw), the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami, the Museo Carlos Maside (Spain) and many others around the world.