'Tess' French Film Poster - P 2015
Film Museum, LodzRoman Polanski‘s half-century career as a director will be honored next month at the Gdynia Film Festival in Poland with an exhibition of more than 500 original posters for his movies from 30 countries.
The exhibition is being staged to mark the 40th anniversary of the annual showcase of Polish film production.
It will also coincide with the final hearing in the current extradition case regarding Polanski, who is facing a bid by U.S authorities to force his return to America to face child sex charges dating to 1977.
The rarest original posters for Polanski films — those from the early days of his Polish career, such as his first 1962 feature, Knife in the Water, designed by Jan Lenica — can nab thousands of dollars; more common posters, such as the 1974 one sheet for China Town that sold last month on eBay for $261, are more modestly priced.
The Gdynia exhibition has been put together by the Film Museum, Lodz, which owns the biggest single collection of Polanski movie posters.
“We have been gathering and enlarging our collection for five years, and we currently have over 500 posters from 30 countries,” said Krystyna Zamyslowska, the curator of the exhibition, which will display 200 from the museum’s collection.
“The curators of the exhibition show how Polanski’s works are reflected in the artistic form of a poster, and the number and diversity of artists’ works demonstrate how amazing, multi-layered and inspiring — not only for film makers — Polanski’s films are,” said Marzena Bomanowska, the film museum director..
Polanski says he is astonished by both the interest and value in the posters.
After being sent a copy of the film museum’s catalog, he wrote: “I don’t know what I find more astonishing about this collection. Quantity or quality. I didn’t think that my films had given a rise to such diversified ‘added value’. Sometimes only with simple sign an artist tells the plot line of my film, revealing how he understood it.”
The exhibition runs in the City of Gdynia Museum from Sept. 15-Nov. 15.
