This striking poster is for Ethiopian avant garde science fiction satire (or farce) Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway, which is the follow-up feature to equally strange, but more subdued Tarkovsky-Jodorowski inspired Crumbs (2015).
Taken from a still from the film, and digitally brushed to look like a hand-drawn or water colour painting, the scene initially seemed to me as a moment of intimidation, combat or violence, but is actually a moment of quiet intimacy between a man and his wife. This is fitting, considering filmmaker Miguel Llansó's work is equally unclassifiable, and unpredictable as his lead actor, Daniel Tadesse. If you look closely at the posture, you might elucidate that our hero is having some back issues at that exact moment.
Featuring zero credit block, taglines, or the typical clutter of a movie poster. There is the chunky, cult 1970s typesetting, and only a curiously minimal image. There is a wonderful use of colour contrasting the left and right sides of the poster, and then inverted between Tadasse's jumpsuit and his wife's posterior and legs. If you are going to go with orange and teal - this is the best use I have seen in a dogs age.
The sparse key art, designed by Barcelonian Illustrator Jesús María Rodríguez Santos, somewhat belies the 'everything and the kitchen sink' nature of the actual film. Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway, is as full and loaded as its lengthy title, consisting of equal parts afro-future, stop motion, The Matrix/Inception virtual universe, Shaolin kung fu schlock, TV's Batman and a host of 20th century z-grade spy films).
Consider this the Fantasia edition of today's column. Enjoy.