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Cairo Station

Original title: Bab el-Hadid · Turkish title: Merkez Garı
1958 · 1 h 17 min
Directed by Youssef Chahine
CrimeDrama

Cast

Youssef Chahine Hind Rostom Farid Shawqi

Credits

Written by: Abdel Hai Adib

Plot

At the central railway station in Cairo, Qinawi, a crippled newspaper seller, becomes obsessed with Hanuma, a young woman who sells soft drinks on the platforms and is engaged to a porter who is organising a union. His desire grows into violence. Youssef Chahine, who also plays Qinawi, made this 1958 film as a bold, realistic portrait of the station's life; it was a failure on release but is now regarded as a classic of Egyptian cinema.

Sinekatalog’s take

Youssef Chahine's gritty drama follows a lame newspaper seller obsessed with a soft-drink girl at Cairo's railway station. Chahine himself plays the lead in a bold, tense, sympathetic portrait of desire and rejection.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 7.5 / 10 (6,398 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.

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