As previously reported, the producers of Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind are shopping for a distributor at the American Film Market in Santa Monica, Calif., this week.

A poster for the film is on display at the eight-day event. Director Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins) snapped a photo and was kind enough to allow us to post it here.

With images of Oja Kodar and Robert Random, it heralds “Never Before Seen Final Film” … “Written and Directed by Orson Welles” … “The Other Side of the Wind.” The full-color poster credits a dozen stars – John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar, Robert Random, Lilli Palmer, Edmond O’Brien, Cameron Mitchell, Paul Stewart, Susan Strasberg, Norman Foster, Mercedes McCambridge and Dennis Hopper.

Obviously, the canvas poster is designed to attract a potential distributor. It is not a theatrical one-sheet.

The poster credits sales agent Moonstone Entertainment, provides the AFM suite location and depicts logos of the producers.

After decades of false starts and dashed hopes, it is exciting to see a poster for this film.

Filip Jan Rymsza of Royal Road Entertainment and German producer Jens Koethner Kaul have teamed with producer Frank Marshall (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future), who was a line producer on The Other Side of the Wind in the early 1970s, to complete the film. Rymsza and Kaul secured the partial ownership rights held by the Paris film company Les Films de l’Astrophore and the late Mehdi Boushehri, brother-in-law of the Shah of Iran. Agreements were also reached with Welles’ youngest daughter, Beatrice, who heads the Estate of Orson Welles, and his longtime companion Oja Kodar, who inherited the late director’s ownership.

The Other Side of the Wind takes place at the 70th birthday party of legendary movie director Jake Hannaford (John Huston), who is struggling to make a commercial comeback at a time when the studio system has been replaced by the New Hollywood. The party is attended by young directors, like Brooks Otterlake (Peter Bogdanovich), hangers-on, critics and movies freaks – many of whom are not so subtly patterned after people in Welles’ life. Hannaford dies at the conclusion of the party and his final hours are told in a collage of still photos, and 8mm, 16mm and 35mm color and black-and-white film shot at the party, along with scenes from his unfinished comeback movie.

Welles had edited about 40 minutes of the film and a work print exists. The 1,083 reels of film negative are being indexed in France and will soon be shipped to the United States.

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