"Antonio das Mortes" (アントニオ・ダス・モルテス), Original First Japanese Release Movie Poster 1970, Kiyoshi Awazu, Japan ATG, B2 Size (51 × 73 cm) M216

This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster printed in 1970 for the first Japanese release of Glauber Rocha’s landmark Brazilian film Antonio das Mortes—originally titled O Dragão da Maldade contra o Santo Guerreiro. Designed by the celebrated Japanese graphic artist Kiyoshi Awazu and distributed by the Japan Art Theatre Guild, it is an important work at the intersection of international political cinema, the Japanese avant-garde and postwar graphic design.

The institutional significance of the design is considerable: an example is held by the National Film Archive of Japan and was included in its major 2026 exhibition The Art of Film Posters in Japan: Revisited, where it appeared within the section devoted to Awazu’s work.

Film background

Set in the arid sertão of north-eastern Brazil, the film follows Antônio das Mortes, a professional jagunço hired by a wealthy landowner to suppress a group of peasants and cangaceiros. Increasingly troubled by his role in maintaining a brutal social order, Antônio experiences a political and spiritual awakening and ultimately turns against the landowning establishment.

Rocha combines revolutionary politics, folk ritual, music, Catholic symbolism and the legend of Saint George and the dragon with the conventions of the Western. The result is one of the defining works of Cinema Novo, the Brazilian movement that sought to confront poverty, inequality and colonial power through formally radical filmmaking.

Presented in competition at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, the film earned Glauber Rocha the Best Director award, shared ex aequo with Vojtěch Jasný. Its Japanese release followed on 24 October 1970, with Film Art Company presenting the film and Japan ATG handling distribution.

Japan ATG played a central role in the country’s postwar art-house culture. Through its specialist cinema network, it distributed foreign films that fell outside the conventional programmes of Japan’s major studios and later supported some of the most experimental works of the Japanese New Wave. Its surviving posters are now collected both as film advertising and as independent works of graphic art.

Poster design

Kiyoshi Awazu rejects the conventional photographic star montage in favour of a radical, Pop-inflected composition. A monumental halftone image of Antônio dominates the brilliant yellow central field. Wrapped in his cape and hat and holding his rifle horizontally, the figure becomes less a conventional portrait than a stark political and folkloric emblem.

The outer border is constructed from a grid of heavily processed film stills printed in electric pink, cyan, yellow and monochrome. These repeated square images suggest both a strip of projected film and the visual rhythm of contemporary Pop Art, while allowing fragments of violence, ritual, poverty and religious symbolism to surround the central figure.

Across the lower section, an enormous dark-green procession of peasants and armed followers advances through the landscape. Its dense collective form contrasts with Antônio’s solitary silhouette and visually anticipates his movement away from hired killer and towards defender of the oppressed.

The forceful Japanese declaration 「第3世界の映像!!」 translates as “Images of the Third World!!” Above it, the publicity describes the film as the heroic, anguish-filled adventure of the killer Antônio, directed with boldness and possessing a primordial energy.

The multicoloured Japanese title, oversized English lettering and intense clashes of yellow, green, magenta and blue are characteristic of Awazu’s refusal of restrained modernist design. The Japan ATG mark at the bottom firmly situates the poster within Japan’s radical art-house culture of the period.

This poster is in Very Good+ condition and presents excellently. The colours remain exceptionally vivid, and the central image retains a powerful overall appearance. There is a short tear with associated creasing and minor colour loss along the right edge, clearly documented in the close-up photograph. Several small pieces of tape remain on the reverse at the corners and edges, consistent with previous display. These condition points are predominantly peripheral and, once framed, the poster will display extremely well (please refer to the imagery of the front, reverse and detailed close-up of the exact poster for sale).

It is over 55 years old.

It is not a reproduction or a reprint.

Certificate of Authenticity included.