The new poster for the upcoming 73rd Venice International Film Festival has been unveiled with an image described as the "moment of expectation" of cinema.

An anonymous spectator adorns the poster, inviting the viewer to feel the imminent moment right before the screening of a film at the festival.

Artist Simone Massi has conceived and designed the poster for the fifth consecutive year. Winner of the 2012 David di Donatello for Best Short Film, Massi directed the opening sequence of the Venice Film Festival, which features 300 hand-drawn illustrations that quote the works of Fellini, Angelopoulos, Wenders, Olmi, Tarkovsky, Dovzhenko and Truffaut.

Considered to be one of the last pioneers of stop-motion animation, working entirely by hand without the assistance of computers, Massi's work has won over 200 awards at major festivals the world over.

Massi previously designed a sequence of four posters for the festival from 2012-2015 meant to be part of one continuous story, taking elemental designs from Wenders' Paris, Texas, Truffaut's The 400 Blows, Angelopoulos' Eternity and a Day and Fellini's And the Ship Sails On.

The 73rd Venice International Film Festival, directed by Alberto Barbera and chaired by Biennale head Paolo Baratta, will take place on the Lido from August 31 to September 10.

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