Ten avant-garde posters from the early Soviet era

Russian film posters of the mid-1920s to early 1930s are unlike any film posters ever created. Although the period of artistic freedom in the Soviet Union was brief, these powerful, startling images remain among the most brilliant and imaginative posters ever conceived. The Russian film poster artists experimented with the same innovative cinematic techniques used in the films they were advertising, such as extreme close-ups, unusual angles, and dramatic proportions. They montaged disparate elements, such as adding photography to lithography, and juxtaposed the action from one scene with a character from another. They colored human faces with vivid colors, elongated and distorted body shapes, gave animal bodies to humans and turned film credits into an integral part of the design. There were no rules, except to follow one's imagination.  Like everything else in the Soviet system, poster production was centralized and state-controlled. Reklam Film was the Sovidno department which oversa