This indie movie production made it all the way to the Cannes Film Festival which is a great achievement for any film production. We were happy to hear the director say that she has no doubt that the poster helped open some of the doors that led it there.

The movie is about a Cuban-American housewife that wants some kind of order in her chaotic family life. Her daughter is only concerned with the school prom and spending time with her boyfriend, a go-cart racer and mechanic on a fast track to nowhere. To make matters worse, her husband Roberto is a nostalgic, former rebel more concerned with politics than his family. Constantly ignored and undermined, Cata is pushed to her limit and demands her family pay attention to her in a drastic display of independence.

Designapolis’ Irina Paba created the assemblage style poster for the film, keeping in mind the only direction given to her by the filmmaker was ‘to stay away from anything too Hollywood styled or slick-looking.’ In Irina words, “I really responded to Ika’s description of her film. I asked her to describe her movie and purposely did not look at any of the shorts or pictures she sent me until after I had the concept. I think Indy filmmakers are moved by sheer passion and love for their craft. With shoestring budgets, limited resources, long hours, etc. they work tirelessly to bring their ideas to the screen. As an artist, I get that and knew that her description of the work would be a great indicator of the film’s essence, way more than any three-minute reel she could send me.”

As a starting point for the distinctive identity of the poster, Irina Paba began with a fragmented collection of seemingly random knickknacks and personal objects as displayed on a flea market table. For the concept, she used her background in fine arts to develop a visual portrayal of the main character’s state of mind. “The poster provided a wonderful opportunity to play around and combine elements of photography, collage, found objects and digital art. Cata is the mother, wife and main breadwinner, who at home tries to maintain her family life with a sense of order as she deals with an aloof husband and lovesick teenage daughter. This directly correlates with her responsibilities at work in the flea market where she has to do the same thing with the products she sells. I saw it as a metaphor for what women try to do daily, to keep it together under pressure and make order out of chaos, sometimes with success, sometimes with failure, but always with heart.”

The movie poster’s purpose is to give viewers a compelling reason to want to see the film. The intent is to build an expectation and desire in the audience that the filmmaker hopes their film will fulfill. The creative goal is to find the best way to communicate to the audience why everyone should see the film, while adhering to the filmmaker’s vision. We hope that the poster does that.