30 years of film posters from underground Swiss cinema Kino Xenix

We all got quite excited about this book of film posters from Kino Xenix, the underground cinema that has become something of a cultural institution in Zurich. Starting as a nomadic student film club back in 1981 with little more than a super 8 film projector, it’s been upheld as a bastion of Zurich’s youth culture since setting up shop in a former school barracks several years later.

Each month for over three decades, Kino Xenix has sent out a monothematic poster to its members as part of its changing program. Helmed by Swiss designers Cornelia Diethelm (of frau Diethelm) and Sabina Albanese (Albanese Grafik), a book spanning the years between 1981–2013 finally brings together over 300 of these posters in a beautiful, large-format and cardboard-bound publication. The theatre’s posters have always been about more than just advertising, and aside from stipulating a portrait layout, a two-colour palette and a broad cinematic theme, designers have always been given carte blanche for their designs. Consequently, as great snapshots of their time they not only chronicle the alternative cinema’s history, but also reflect 30 years of creativity, politics and graphic design in Switzerland.