The Fifth exhibition in the series The Collection, entitled Japanese Cinema in Polish Film Posters, showcases another important part of the Museum’s own collection.

In January 2010, the collections of the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in were enhanced by the addition of one more – a collection of posters announcing various events relating to Japanese culture. This  would not have been possible without the personal involvement of the Founders of our museum: Andrzej Wajda and Krystyna Zachwatowicz, as well as the financial support from several institutions, notably the Polish Film Institute, Związek Pracodawców Shōkōkai (association of Japanese Companies in Poland), the Japanese Club (Nihonjinkai) in Poland, and the Kyoto-Krakow Foundation. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our Friends and Sponsors.

The collection of over one hundred items is dominated by film posters. These works were made between 1951 and 1993, which means that they represent the period of the greatest flourish of Polish graphic arts and the time when Japanese cinema was a huge success around the world.

The museum’s collection of film posters reveals one of the most interesting manifestations of the Polish-Japanese relations, forming a distinct pattern of presentation. While the cinematic repertoire represented by the collection is directly connected with Japanese culture (a decided majority of the films were made in Japan, by Japanese filmmakers, with Japanese actors, acting Japanese), it is noteworthy that the mode of presenting these productions was indirect: the posters are not polish copies of Japanese ones, which was often the case in Western countries, but were made as individual projects undertaken by Polish visual artists.

Over eighty items enable us to follow both forty years of Japanese post-war cinema – or, to be precise, forty years of Japanese films in Poland, as this is obviously only a fragment of the rich accomplishment of Japanese cinematic art of the time – and the corresponding period in the long history of Polish poster art. The oldest playbill in the collection dates back to 1951 (Wojciech Fangor, Rashomon), while the most recent one was released in 1993 (Waldemar Świerzy, Sierpniowa rapsodia/ Rhapsody in August). It was a time of extremely intensive change in the post-war histories of our respective societies. There is no doubt that – against this background – film was a medium recording faithfully the new trends. This is why, by reviewing the repertoire documented by the collection, we are enabled to follow a number of interesting phenomena and directions present in the Japanese cinema of the period. By way of example, these would include: hibaku-eiga – films referring to the trauma caused by the explosion of the atom bomb; kaidan-eiga – ghost stories and other horror films; samurai movies, extremely popular around the world; or blockbuster monster movies, in particular the famous Godzilla series. Finally, the latter half of the 20th century was the time of the triumph of the great filmmakers. Let us mention here just a few names, such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Masaki Kobayashi, Kon Ichikawa or Tadashi Imai. Critical acclaim and a shower of prizes from the most prestigious festivals made them household names forever associated with the cinematic art of the Land of the Rising Sun.