Nocturnal: The Renewal of the Cuban Movie Poster

What do five good Cuban graphic designers, friends who want to have fun and discuss new group projects, do next? They look for a place to meet and work, and for a name under which they can establish a professional reputation.

The designers in question were lucky as one of them had an apartment large enough to accommodate them all near Plaza de la Revolución in Havana. Then the discussion about the name started; it went on and on until they finally asked “Why not take the name of the bar above which the apartment is located?”

Thus was born the Nocturnal collective in 2015, composed of Michele Myares Hollands, Giselle Monzón, Edel Rodríguez (Mola), Nelson Ponce, and Raúl Valdés (Raupa). The same year, it exhibited for the first time at the Musée des beaux-arts et d’archéologie de Besançon in France in Cuba a la Vista! (Cuba in Sight), part of a larger group exhibition organized by the Club de Amigos del Cartel (CACa; Club for the Friends of  Posters), founded in 2008 by Pepe Menéndez and Nelson Ponce.

Nocturnal’s next important exhibition was a solo show held at La Casa del Festival del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano (the House of the New Latin American Film Festival) in Havana in 2017. Each of the designers had already assembled an impressive portfolio of posters and graphic designs, and this was a wonderful opportunity to showcase them.

In 1999, Nelson Ponce took part in a poster competition and created the magnificent, minimalist illustration for the popular animated horror film Vampiros en La Habana (Vampires in Havana, 1985). The poster was selected to be presented in the exhibition Ayer y Hoy: Carteles de Cine Cubano (Yesterday and Today: Cuban Movie Posters) at the Charles Chaplin Cinema in Havana; it displayed new interpretations of classic movie posters by contemporary Cuban designers who had entered the competition alongside the works of their famous Cuban peers from the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC; The Cuban Institute on Cinematographic Arts and Industry), people like Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, Antonio Reboiro, and Ñiko. When Nocturnal was formed in 2015, Ponce was probably the best-known designer in the group.

Raupa had designed the annual ICAIC poster for a few years and graphic campaigns for the Muestra Joven (Youth Film Festival). As for Mola, he had created numerous posters for cultural events in Havana, particularly musical performances. As a member of Nocturnal, he produced, among other designs, the remarkable Almodóvar Folder, a series of 10 posters paying tribute to Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar on his 70th birthday, and screen-printed by Taller Portocarrero in Old Havana. The publication of the folder was also intended to coincide with the screening of the director’s films in the Havana Film Festival in December 2019.

Before and after the official founding of Nocturnal, members of the group showed their work in such exhibitions as Puros Cubanos: Cultural Posters from Cuba at the Pratt Institute and Front Art Space in New York in 2015; Puros Cubanos. Five Cuban Designers in Lille, France, in 2013; Ola Cuba!, part of the Lille3000 festival in the same city in 2018; La Letra del Año at Galeria Villena in Old Havana in 2018; and Cuban Pie in 2019 at Fabrica de Arte Cubano, one of Havana’s cultural and nightlife hotspots, which had opened in 2014.

Nocturnal’s most impressive recent project is probably Vienen 13, a portfolio of 13 slasher-movie posters screen-printed at Portocarrero workshop in 2023. The name is both a nod to the famous American slasher film Friday the 13th (1980), directed by Sean S. Cunningham, and a play on the words viernes (“Friday” in Spanish) and vienen (“they are coming”).

This idea came from discussions between Nelson Ponce and Raupa, both big fans of horror movies. Then, in consultation with Myares Hollands, Giselle Monzón, and Mola, they drew up a list and each person picked two titles at random. The remaining three titles were submitted to Cuban friends living abroad: Eric Silva, Zamo Peza, and Andy Paneque.

In his poster for the Vienen 13 portfolio, Ponce adds a touch of humor to a grisly genre, showing blood-red paint from the lettering above her dropping onto the jump rope of the somewhat naive and surprised-looking girl who is the focus of the composition. Here, Raupa brilliantly pulls off an approach that designers are generally recommended to avoid: if the title is “Hatchet,” don’t use a hatchet to illustrate the poster. But the simple, abstract form of a hatchet that occupies almost the entire space in Rupa’s design exudes an exceptional visual power.

Monzón is quite well known for her 2009 poster for the classic 1948 Italian film Bicycle Thieves (Ladrones de bicicletas in Spanish), directed by Vittorio De Cica, in which she presents a tapestry of wheels of various types and sizes on top of a burglar’s sack. The design represents a complete revision of the compositions of typical posters for this film, which feature either film stills or illustrations of scenes from the movie. For her Vienen 13 pick, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Monzón illustrated a sun setting over the sea, a scene that might appear quite peaceful were it not for the blood-red light on the black water and the appearance of a large, scary hook.

Michele Myares Hollands has produced movie posters for ICAIC and other institutions since the early 2000s. She often draws her designs by hand or incorporates photography, sometimes combining the two to create the right illustration for her subject.

Myares Hollands’ designs, like most Cuban posters, are produced on a low budget and restricted to two colors; she therefore typically uses black and red on a white background for maximum contrast and dramatic effect.

Like the other members of Nocturnal, Mola graduated from the Instituto Superior de Diseño (ISDi; the Havana Institute of Design), where he also taught for a few years. It was there that they all became friends and began their collaboration, as some members of the next generation of Cuban graphic design students will presumably do too.

For Vienen 13, Mola picked Halloween, John Carpenter’s 1978 film, probably one of the most famous in the slasher genre. Many people will recognize the pumpkin, normally a festive symbol but here transformed into an emblem of terror by the knife that forms its menacing smile. Here, as in most of his other posters, Mola’s typography is particularly distinctive.

In addition to their group projects, each member of Nocturnal still works individually as a freelance designer. However, collaboration has become increasingly challenging as the political and economic situation in Cuba has become more difficult: since 2016, Monzón traveled frequently to France and Spain, and departed permanently for the United States in 2020, while  Mola moved to Berlin in 2022.

In spite of these problems, all lovers of Cuban posters hope that the members of Nocturnal will find ways to continue their work together—and eagerly await their future artistic collaborations.

Marc H. Choko is professor emeritus at the Université du Québec à Montréal School of Design. He is passionate about posters and graphic design, is the author of some 15 books, and has curated around 100 exhibitions in Quebec, Canada, and in a dozen countries. He is an honorary member of the Quebec Society of Graphic Designers (2013) and a founder of the Quebec annual graphic students social poster competition (since 2014).