Japanese posters, specifically the work of Tadanori Yokoo, and Polish film posters from the sixties and seventies are the main graphic references used by the Catalan illustrator Luci Gutiérrez to develop the poster for the 37th edition of ‘Cinema Jove’ of  Valencia, the image of which was unveiled yesterday afternoon during an open talk with the public in Room 7 of the Rialto Building. The València International Film Festival reaffirms its commitment to the most relevant graphic artists on the current scene. During recent editions, the design of the official image of ‘Cinema Jove’ was entrusted to creators such as Joan Quirós, Marta Pina, David de las Heras, Daniel Rueda and Anna Devís.

Gutiérrez, who was accompanied by Carlos Madrid, director of Cinema Jove, and the festival’s art director, Ada Diez, shared with those attending the event some of the keys to her creative process. “My initial idea was to draw the foreground of a character whose face had things going on that referred to different genres of cinema. This led me to think of that mixture of strangeness and fantasy that Japanese animated films such as “Paprika” convey. Then I realised that it was better to present the character in full-length, so that it would be clear that it was a cinema-goer. Bigas Luna’s “Angustia” came to mind, in the sense of how it focuses on the influence of a film on the person watching it.”

Gutiérrez, a regular contributor to leading publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker, revealed the symbolism behind the choice of colours in the poster: “The blue is a reinterpretation of the darkness of the cinema, and the red is a nod to the classic seats and the curtain of the screen”. With regard to the details that accompany the main figure (a gun, a police chase, a rocket), the illustrator establishes a clear parallelism between her work and the emergence of science fiction and adventure films of the 1980s.

For Ada Diez, the work that Gutiérrez has developed for the 37th edition of the festival evokes a multitude of sensations and intrepid situations. “The whisper of a secret; the fear of giant monsters destroying cities; the urgency of going through the city dodging chases; the resolution of mysteries… Luci Gutiérrez has managed to include many themes in a single poster, using clear lines, powerful colours and details of great exquisiteness and subtlety”.

“Binge Loving”, first short film of the Official Selection 2022

After the talk, two short films were screened: “Rehearsal”, winner of last year’s Luna de Valencia award for best short film, and “Binge Loving”, directed by Belgian director Thomas Deknop and included in the Official Selection of Cinema Jove 2022.

In “Rehearsal”, the Nigerian director and screenwriter Michael Omonua portrays the rehearsals of a group of actors at the National Theatre of Nigeria. The performers in turn embody the members of a church trying to recruit new followers to their faith. An interesting drama in which the boundaries between church and theatre, between faith and credibility, begin to blur.

“Binge Loving” premieres in Spain, via Cinema Jove in Valencia, after winning awards such as the Ensor Award and the prize for best Belgian short film at the Leuven International Short Film Festival. The action starts when a private detective is commissioned by a woman to pursue her husband because she suspects he has a mistress.

Report  by 24/7 Valencia team

Article copyright 24/7 Valencia

More info: https://www.cinemajove.com/