Vasilis Marmatakis - the artist behind Yorgos Lanthimos' film posters

With Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, the posters are as provocative as the films. For instance, before watching The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), the image that fuelled my anticipation was the eerie, mind-boggling one-sheet released for its Cannes premiere. At the time, I couldn’t formulate an explanation. The framing of Colin Farrell, in a hospital, looming over two empty beds, told me hardly anything about the plot. Yet I felt compelled to analyse this solitary image like a magic eye puzzle. Is it a horror? Where’s the deer? Wait, is he the deer? And how did he grow a beard that quickly after The Lobster? Already, my excitement was heightened.

The artist to thank is Vasilis Marmatakis. Since Dogtooth in 2005, Marmatakis has designed the promotional posters for all of Lanthimos’s movies, creating eye-catching images that challenge observers to fill in the blanks. In the early 2000s, Lanthimos did freelance work at the advertising company that employed his future collaborators, Marmatakis and Efthymis Filippou. Filippou would later co-write Dogtooth, Alps, The Lobster and Sacred Deer.

Marmatakis crafted the artwork for these cult oddities, but he also went one further with his involvement on Lanthimos’s new film, The Favourite. The newly released comedy – a twisted period piece starring Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman and 17 rabbits – is ultra-mean, malicious fun. But, really, you should have guessed that tone from Marmatakis’s macabre poster.

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