“Reggae Movies in Yokohama”, Original Japanese B2 Film Festival Poster 1992, Bob Marley / Jimmy Cliff / Rockers Rare Silkscreen Key Visual, B2 Poster Size (c.51.5 × 72.8cm) S66
This is an original, exceptionally rare Japanese B2 promotional poster from 1992 advertising Reggae Movies in Yokohama (レゲエ・ムービーズ in YOKOHAMA), a highly specialised summer screening programme devoted to Jamaican reggae cinema and music. Rather than a nationwide commercial theatrical release, this poster was produced for a specific Yokohama film programme, making it a fascinating survivor from Japan’s early-1990s reggae and alternative cinema culture. The standard Japanese B2 format measures approximately 51.5 × 72.8 cm (20.3 × 28.7 inches).
Festival background
Reggae Movies in Yokohama brought together three landmark films connected to Jamaican music and culture, presented sequentially from the middle of August through September.
The programme printed directly on the poster reads:
15–24 August — Bob Marley: Time Will Tell
25 August–4 September — The Harder They Come
5–11 September — Rockers
The configuration of the printed dates and weekdays — including 15 August falling on a Saturday and 24 August on a Monday — places the event in 1992, the year Bob Marley: Time Will Tell was released.
The programme brings together three very different but deeply interconnected documents of reggae history. Time Will Tell celebrates Bob Marley, whose music became one of Jamaica’s most internationally recognised cultural exports. The Harder They Come stars Jimmy Cliff and is widely regarded as one of the defining films responsible for introducing Jamaican music and culture to international audiences. Rockers, meanwhile, features an extraordinary cast of reggae musicians and performers headed by drummer Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace, capturing Kingston’s late-1970s music culture with an immediacy that has made the film a cult classic.
Poster design
Printed in the large Japanese B2 format, this design is radically different from conventional studio movie advertising. Its enormous expanse of saturated yellow, combined with heavily screened red, black and white imagery, gives the poster the raw immediacy of a gig poster or underground silkscreen rather than a polished multiplex campaign.
The upper portion is dominated by the enormous title:
レゲエ・ムービーズ
in YOKOHAMA
Below it appears the brilliant promotional line:
ラフでハードなジャマイカの風が吹く
Approximately: “A rough and hard Jamaican wind blows.”
That simple line perfectly captures the approach of the campaign: this was not being marketed merely as a series of film screenings, but as an injection of Jamaican music, attitude and street culture into Yokohama.
The imagery forms an extraordinary collage of reggae cinema icons. Bob Marley dominates the upper-left section, his instantly recognisable dreadlocks and smiling expression translated into a bold red halftone. Beside him is Jimmy Cliff, connecting the design directly to The Harder They Come.
At the bottom, Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace from Rockers becomes the most confrontational element of the composition. Wearing his distinctive cap and patterned clothing, he stares directly outward while brandishing a revolver. His eyes are rendered in vivid orange-red against the much darker face, creating an almost posterised, punk-like effect.
A drum kit and other fragmentary imagery emerge around the figures, reinforcing the sense that music rather than conventional cinematic glamour is the true subject of the design.
The limited palette and visible halftone construction give the poster an unusually tactile, handmade quality. The yellow, rusty red, black and white colour scheme feels closer to Japanese underground music graphics, punk ephemera and independent screen-printing than mainstream film advertising. It is exactly this combination of reggae history, Japanese graphic design and highly localised exhibition culture that makes the poster so distinctive.
Cultural significance
Japan developed an unusually deep relationship with Jamaican reggae and dancehall culture, with major urban and port centres becoming important hubs for record collecting, sound-system culture and live performance. Yokohama was particularly well suited to this crossover, and this poster captures a specific moment when reggae cinema was being presented to Japanese audiences not simply as imported entertainment, but as part of a wider subcultural movement.
Unlike posters made for large nationwide releases, material produced for short, localised screening programmes was inherently ephemeral. Once the event ended, there was little commercial reason to preserve the advertising. Surviving B2 examples such as this are consequently much more difficult to encounter than ordinary studio-issued theatrical posters.
This poster is in Very Good+ to Excellent condition. There is minor edge wear and a small area of wear / paper disturbance along the left margin, but no significant loss affecting the principal figures or typography.
The verso remains generally clean for an original piece of promotional material of this age and carries period handwritten Japanese notations, further reflecting its working promotional history.
Most importantly, the poster’s extraordinary colour remains extremely strong and saturated. The yellow field is wonderfully vivid, while the red and black screen-printed imagery retains tremendous contrast. The fold lines produce only limited colour disruption and do not diminish the overall impact of the composition.
Please refer to the imagery (front, detail and verso), as this is the exact poster that is for sale. Once framed it will display excellently.
It is over 34 years old.
It is not a reproduction or a reprint.
