Kino-Film: Soviet posters of the silent screen which still look fresh today

Poster for the classic revolutionary film Battleship Potemkin (Pic: GRAD)

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The British Council and the Russia Ministry of Foreign Affairs have made 2014 the “UK/Russian Year of Culture”. 

As part of the “cultural exchange” the Russians can look forward to visits from Shakespeare, Britten, the Young British Artists, and Hitchcock.

In return, we will host Tchaikovsky, Malevich, a choir of monks and some remnants of the Soviet space program.

It may be arbitrary and driven by international diplomacy, but it’s throwing up some nice surprises.

This exhibition is one of them. It’s a show of original film posters from the golden age of Soviet cinema in the 1920s. 

The designs reflect the wider cultural ferment of the time.

In particular, they seek to speak the language of the new films.

They play with montage, and with our sense of space, scale and direction. And they still look fresh today.