The lost art of hand-painted movie billboards is still alive in Athens

Handmade movie posters were once a mainstay of Hollywood and cinemas around the world, but the trend has long died out in favor of glossy, Photoshopped billboards. A scant few movie billboard painters remain, but The New York Times caught up with one of them in Athens, named Vasilis Dimitriou. The 78-year-old Dimitriou has been crafting larger-than-life billboards for theaters in Athens since the 1950s. He mixes his own paints — with a special formula to keep them from running in the rain — and ultimately gives a human touch to the latest releases from Her to The Wolf of Wall Street. It may be a dying art, but there’s nothing to stop us from enjoying Dimitriou’s bold, graphic, and colorful work. The New York Times has plenty of photos, and you can see some more of his posters, including classics like Lolita, in an older article from Greek newspaper To Vima.