An insightful look at America’s underground poster community, Eileen Yaghoobian’s Died Young, Stayed Pretty chronicles the filmmaker’s multi-year trek across the US and her fastidious quest to capture poster art’s cultural presence.
The film — which is Yaghoobian’s first feature-length project — focuses primarily on poster-art giants who are generally unknown outside of their field of work. Additionally, Died Young, Stayed Pretty addresses the prospect of posters functioning equally as advertisements, artifacts, and pieces of fine art.
In 2004, Yaghoobian set out to create a film both “transparent and true” to its subject matter. Initially fascinated by the artwork she saw on GigPosters.com, Yaghoobian felt an immediate connection with the imagery, and thereafter set out on a three-year road trip across the US in order to discover the “language of posters, and their cultural dialogue” within the landscape of America.
