The Passion Alley - درب الهوى

Set in the 1940s, this film stars actresses Madiha Kamel and Youssra and actors Ahmed Zaki, Mahmoud Abdelaziz, Farouq El-Fishawy and Hassan Abdin, and weaves together several stories centered on a brothel in the Darb Tayyab area. The relationships between the women and the men who visit them involve love, betrayal, secret shame and unexpected dignity.

The warm tones of this poster suggest the red light district setting, with Madiha and Youssra foregrounded before a lineup of their suitors. The calligraphy is rendered in a style that resembles the font used on neighborhood street markers. This film was censored and banned in Egypt shortly after its debut, and this poster is an important document of a historically meaningful film.

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