Above: US poster for The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland/UK/USA). Designer: Vasilis Marmatakis.
The 56th edition of the New York Film Festival kicks off tonight with the latest by that sly provocateur Yorgos Lanthimos, and my annual round-up of posters for films in the festival kicks off with a slyly provocative poster from Lanthimos’s secret weapon: his longtime poster designer Vasilis Marmatakis. One of two posters by Marmatakis for the film (the other one can be seen here) this one is by far the odder and most subversive. [Correction: the other poster, which is being used for the US release of the film, is not by Marmatakis but by the design agency Midnight Oil.]
As usual I’ve tried to collect posters for all the films in the festival’s main slate—there are 30 this year—the only two poster-less films being Olivier Assayas’s Non-Fiction and Louis Garrel’s A Faithful Man. Some of these might be familiar from my Cannes round-up, though I’ve tried to post alternatives if they exist. And this year, for the first time, I’m proud to say that one of the posters was designed by yours truly (for Godard’s The Image Book). Aside from The Favourite, my favorite posters are inevitably the illustrated ones: Patrick Connan’s for 3 Faces, Chris Ware’s for Private Life, Huang Hai’s for Shoplifters, Mara Cerri’s for Happy as Lazzaro, and the as yet unidentified artist for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Of the others, the hipster design for Too Late to Die Young, the gig poster look for Her Smell, and the excessive negative space of Roma are of note. But of all the photographic designs the official festival poster, created by Faces, Places co-director JR and ace cinematographer—and NYFF regular—Ed Lachman, is the most interesting—and one of the best NYFF posters in recent years—with its Manhattan alleyway filled with oversized monochrome prints of famous filmmakers’ eyes (held aloft by NYFF staff). You can see that at the bottom of the page, below the rest of the main slate presented in alphabetical order.
Above: US poster for 3 Faces (Jafar Panahi, Iran). Artist: Patrick Connan.
Above: Japanese poster for Asako I & II (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan/France).
Above: Festival poster for Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhangke, China).
Above: US poster for At Eternity’s Gate (Julian Schnabel, USA/France).
Above: US poster for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, USA).
Above: US poster for Burning (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea).
Above: Festival poster for Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland).
Above: Festival poster for A Family Tour (Ying Liang, Taiwan/Hong Kong/Singapore/Malaysia).
Above: Festival poster for Grass (Hong Sangsoo, South Korea).
Above: Italian poster for Happy as Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy). Artist: Mara Cerri.
Above: US poster for Her Smell (Alex Ross Perry, USA).
Above: French poster for High Life (Claire Denis, Germany/France/USA/UK/Poland).
Above: Festival poster for Hotel by the River (Hong Sangsoo, South Korea).
Above: US poster for If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, USA).
Above: US poster for The Image Book (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland). Designer: Adrian Curry.
Above: Festival poster for In My Room (Ulrich Köhler, Germany).
Above: Argentinian poster La Flor (Mariano Llinás, Argentina).
Above: US poster for Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan, China/France).
Above: US poster for Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman, USA).
Above: US poster for Private Life (Tamara Jenkins, USA). Designer: Chris Ware.
Above: UK poster for Ray & Liz (Richard Billingham, UK).
Above: US poster for Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico).
Above: Chinese poster for Shoplifters (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan). Artist: Huang Hai.
Above: French poster for Sorry Angel (Christophe Honoré, France).
Above: Too Late to Die Young (Dominga Sotomayor, Chile).
Above: German poster for Transit (Christian Petzold, Germany/France).
Above: US poster for Wildlife (Paul Dano, USA).
Above: Poster for the 56th New York Film Festival created by JR and Ed Lachman.
You can see my previous New York Film Festival poster round-ups here: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, as well as flashback posts to 1988, 1965 and 1963.
Many thanks to Jahan Bakshi for identifying the artist for Happy as Lazzaro.