TEN THOUSAND SUNS 1967 Ferenc Kósa PETER STRAUSFELD UK ACADEMY QUAD POSTER

Original British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1967 Ferenc Kósa Hungarian film TEN THOUSAND SUNS (TÍZEZER NAP), written by Sándor Csoóri, Imre Gyöngyössy & Ferenc Kósa and starring Tibor Molnár, Gyöngyi Bürös, János Koltai, János Rajz, János Görbe and Sándor Siménfalvy.

”From the very outset, Ferenc Kósa differed from his contemporaries in his analytical approach to his own subjective creed. His Ten Thousand Suns is a strong drama that skilfully draws on the best traditions of Hungarian populism - which is rich in balladry and folklore, and relies on beauty of expression as the only defense against poverty - and at the same time is a lyrical appraisal of, and a farewell to, the centuries-old credos of rural Hungary. The story focuses on a farmer who had spent the years before the war in poverty, a man whose life is rooted in the soil. In the period of the mandatory collectivization of agriculture, he refuses to enter the co-operative farm and is arrested. Kósa relates this man’s individual storyagainst a backdrop of the general story of his entire village over a period of 30 years (or 10,000 days), from before the war, through the year 1956, to the sixties. The peasant returns from jail, and both he and his wife - who waited for him during his years of imprisonment - are too weary to believe that there could be a better life. To their son, their life seems like a distant, strange past. After two years of arguments Kósa finally agreed to make some requested cuts, primarily involving the events in 1956, and Ten Thousand Suns was approved for distribution.” Mira & Antonin Liehm.

The poster art is by Peter Strausfeld. Strausfeld was interned in the Isle of Man at the Onchan Internment Camp during the War where he met the Austrian producer George Hoellering. In 1947 Hoellering opened the Academy Cinema on Oxford Street and invited Strausfeld to produce some posters for the cinema which he did in wood and lino-cuts till his death in 1980.

The Academy Cinema, built in 1913, was saved from conversion to a shopping arcade in 1928 by Elsie Cohen of the original Film Society, who proceeded to run it as an arthouse which is how it was ran till it's closure in 1986.

The posters became a London landmark, in fact very few were used outside of London, resulting in very small print runs of 3-500. Most of these posters were printed at the prestigious Westminster Press and Ward & Foxlow.

The poster is in very good unfolded (rolled) condition.