Egypt is the major producer of movies in the Arab world with Cairo considered the 'Hollywood of the Arab world', but NOT when it comes to the posters. The poster market is vary scattered, unregulated and hard to identify. Very little information has been printed or even established on distribution and markings.

The early Egyptian movie posters were made by Greek and Italian companies. When the industry became regulated in the early 1960's, the posters began being handled within Egypt.

Egyptian films were controlled by the director and producer who would contract with a local printer to make the posters. No records or standards were really instituted for this so poster sizes vary greatly.

International films that came from outside of Egypt are a little easier to distinguish.

Here's the most common:

24x35 - the standard size before the early 60's

27.5x39 - became the standard from the 60's until the current even though some recently have listed 27x40.

39x70 - used to cover larger spaces outside

68x137 - the standard size for the Egyptian billboard which is extremely popular.

Lobby Cards

Egyptian Lobby Cards (kartonat) are assembled by hand and made in small quantities and can be issued in any number. Shown below is a set of 4.

image courtesy of John Green

They consist of a heavy 13" x 19" card with printed theme art and a still photograph from the film in color or black and white mounted on the card.

Cards with a revenue stamp attached indicates that the card was displayed outside the theater where the film was shown. Cards displayed inside the theater do not necessarily have revenue stamps.

Here's a street in Cairo showing the use of billboards there..... notice.. the billboard center bottom.... Star Wars!!!!

image and additional information by John Green who has some more info on his site.