Ghanaian Movie Poster

Late 1980s, Ghana. A man arrives in the village with a television, a VCR, and a gas generator on his back.

That was mobile cinema, a cottage industry that traveled from village to village showing movies. Customers had to be drawn in, and so the Ghanaian movie poster was born. Hand-painted on canvas, it presents a lurid, colorful patchwork of images meant to attract, engage and entice. Melodramatic, sometimes grotesque, occasionally ludicrous. Never forgettable.

This one, 20th century, measures about three feet by nearly four.

Hang it in the den. The evening will have a plot.