Alexa here to share some arts and crafts for your Tuesday. I recently came upon a story about the strange world of bootleg movie posters from Ghana and I've become a little obsessed. In the 80s and early 90s, when VHS tapes from Hong Kong, Bollywood and Hollywood started making their way to Ghana, mobile cinemas were set up to screen films on the fly. Promotional posters were needed quickly to get people into the theaters but there was a catch: the artists knew little about the films before making the posters. Armed with titles and their own imaginations, the poster artists created versions of these films stuffed with more violence and pulpy thrills than the films themselves.
More false advertising after the jump
The mobile cinemas began to disappear in the 90s when more Ghanaians had their own equipment. But art dealers started buying up the original posters, even commissioning new works form the artists. Jeaurs Oka Afutu is one of these artists, who continues to paint movie posters from his home, imbuing the canvases with his own imaginary elements to make the films less "boring."
Now so much more than false advertising, these are like posterized wish fulfillment. You can see many more here and start collecting here.