Cinema puts work of Berlin's last poster artist up in lights

Götz Valien is Berlin's last movie poster artist, for more than three decades earning a modest living producing giant hand-painted film adverts to hang at the city's historic cinemas.

- By Deborah Cole BERLIN

The studios' own posters serve as a template, but Austrian-born Valien, 65, adds a distinctive pop art flourish to each image coupled with the beauty of imperfection.

"Advertising is about drawing attention and I add the human touch, which is why it works," he said. Valien's work plays up the image's essence: the imposing bow of a ship, the haunting eyes of a screen siren, a mysterious smile. He jokingly calls himself a Kino-saurier - a play on the German words for cinema and dinosaur.

His nearly 7x9-metre canvases long-graced the "film palaces" of the German capital, including the majestic Delphi in the west and the socialist modernist masterpiece Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in the east. But the former's adverts finally went digital in 2024, while the latter is closed for a revamp. Dozens of independent cinemas have simply gone out of business. The century-old Filmtheater am Friedrichshain (FaF) is the last movie theatre in Berlin still employing Valien, his large-format posters covering its facade and interior walls around the ticket counter.