An Artistic Heritage Born Through Cinema

For much of the twentieth century, the Italian film poster represented an extraordinary encounter between cinema, painting and art.

Before becoming a printed image destined for public display, each work began with the hand of an artist who interpreted the film through their own personal artistic language: compositions, colours, atmospheres and painterly solutions transformed a work of commercial communication into an autonomous work of art.

The great Italian school of poster painters, known as the Pittori Cartellonisti, created a heritage of remarkable artistic value, with artists capable of working across very different genres and visual approaches: from realism to graphic abstraction, from refined colour research to freer and more expressive forms of painting.

The film was the starting point, but the quality of the work came from the artist’s own vision.

A Heritage Largely Hidden from View

The fate of these works was profoundly different from that of a painting created to be preserved.

Displayed on the streets, squares and billboards of cinemas across Italy, film posters had an extremely short life: within days, they made way for the poster of the next film.

The paper used was lightweight, chosen for temporary and economical display rather than long-term conservation. Most of this material was discarded once the film’s theatrical run ended; only a small part survived thanks to the passion of collectors, cinema owners and cultural institutions.

Today, the surviving works represent an enormous yet largely hidden heritage: preserved in private collections, rarely accessible in their true scale and quality, and only partially presented through exhibitions organised by cinematheques and museums.

Many of these works have not been forgotten: they have simply never been seen.

Movie.it: Bringing a Hidden Heritage to Light

Through direct relationships with collectors and owners of important collections, the project began with research and professional photography of original prints.Over time, it has grown to include more than 40,000 works: film posters, locandine and lobby cards, with particular attention to painted works, digitally restored during production to guarantee the highest possible quality for reproduction.

This is not a randomly assembled collection.

The works have been selected for their historical and artistic value, recovering materials that once formed part of the official Italian film distribution materials and that tell the story of an extraordinary chapter in the country’s visual culture.

A Tool for Architects and Designers

For an interior design project, value does not simply lie in finding a beautiful image, but in finding works capable of interacting with a space, an atmosphere and a precise identity.

An archive of more than 40,000 works gives professionals access to an extraordinary range of possibilities: colours, styles, historical periods, artistic languages and different sensibilities.

Professionals can begin with a specific idea or explore the archive freely. When needed, the Movie.it team can also support the research process, offering the knowledge gained through studying and photographing thousands of works.

This makes it possible to quickly identify coherent visual directions for very different projects: an elegant and minimalist environment, a space built around colour, a project inspired by a historical period, or an intervention where the artwork must engage with contemporary materials and architecture.

Works can become the absolute focus of a space or contribute, together with others, to building its overall identity.

Beyond the Cinema Reference

Cinema adds something further to these works: memory, emotion and storytelling.

But their strength as design elements comes above all from their artistic quality.

A composition, a colour choice or a particular painterly language can become an element capable of interacting with a space regardless of the fame of the film represented.

It is precisely this freedom that makes the Movie.it heritage particularly interesting for contemporary design: not simply images connected to cinematic memory, but works capable of engaging with different spaces, materials and sensibilities in their own right.

Every Project Begins on Request

Movie.it works exclusively on request.

Each work is produced according to the specific needs of the project, allowing clients and professionals to choose the most suitable format, dimensions and support.

Different types of paper, canvas, dibond, acrylic glass and other suitable materials make it possible to enhance each image according to the desired effect, from large-scale installations to more intimate solutions.

For some projects, it may be preferable to present the image closer to the original painted work, removing the graphic elements later added for promotional and distribution purposes, which in some cases covered parts of the artist’s original composition.

This possibility, among others, is part of Movie.it’s normal working method.

Enhancing a Heritage, Not Simply Preserving It

The value of these works does not belong only to the past.

Created as images intended for a very brief presence in public spaces, produced by artists of extraordinary talent and remaining largely unseen for decades, they can now return to life in new contexts.

Movie.it makes available a unique Italian artistic heritage, offering designers, companies and private clients the opportunity to integrate into their spaces works that combine history, culture, painterly quality and emotion.

The works reproduced on this page come from original period prints, recovered, photographed and digitally restored by Movie.it.