Exhibition in Bologna: Great Italian Film Posters

There is a precise moment when, walking into Biblioteca Salaborsa, you immediately sense that something is different: you look up, and there they are, the great film posters hanging along the first-floor balcony.

Twelve posters by Italian painters, created for films of the 1950s and 1960s with women in the leading roles, carry you straight back in time. They do not look like posters at all. They look like paintings.

And in a sense, that is exactly what they are. These are not mass-produced copies but the result of professional digital restoration and individual high-definition printing on canvas, designed to bring out the richness of the colours, the brushstroke, the light.

They were displayed during the 39th edition of the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival, as part of a collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna established to restore recognition and visibility to the great Italian tradition of master film poster artists.

Posters as Works of Art

The exhibition will remain on view in Salaborsa until 15 December 2025. From 21 December it will be replaced by twelve different posters, turning Salaborsa into a small gallery of film poster art in its own right.

Each poster in the exhibition tells a chapter of film history: from Riso Amaro to La ragazza con la pistola, from Breakfast at Tiffany's to Guardie e ladri. Printed on canvas, these images give back not just the picture but the living substance of the original illustration: the brushstroke, the play of light and shadow, the texture of the colour.

In the hushed atmosphere of the library, the colours come alive and natural light picks out faces and details. No special effects are needed: the power of painting and the emotion of shared memory are more than enough.

A Project to Save the Great Italian School of the Film Poster

The project grew out of the collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna, with a shared goal: to recover and celebrate tens of thousands of works belonging to what was a genuinely independent Italian art form, recognised around the world.

Through painstaking high-resolution digitisation and professional colour restoration, the project is building a unique digital archive: tens of thousands of posters, locandine (the small vertical Italian format) and stills, available to collectors, enthusiasts, industry professionals and anyone who loves art.

To Decorate, to Collect, to Relive Great Cinema

The canvas prints offered by Movie.it are not reserved for exhibitions alone: they are also available to order for private or professional use. Each piece is unique, ideal for cultural spaces, creative studios, screening rooms, or a private home.

For anyone who loves classic cinema, Italian design and film graphics as an art form, this archive is a chance to collect emotions, pass on culture and bring the timeless beauty of restored posters into your own rooms.

Beneath the poster, a painting. Beneath the painting, a memory.

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