A Djinn’s Tale – Illustrated Film Poster Design

For A Djinn’s Tale, the second feature film by Ahmad M. Hamada, I was commissioned to create an atmospheric illustrated film poster design that would embody the story’s complex interplay of identity, faith, grief, and cultural tension.

The narrative follows Sean, an American man mourning his late girlfriend, who travels to the Middle East under a false identity to connect with her veiled twin sister. As such, the poster needed to reflect not only the film’s natural undertones but also its emotional depth and moral ambiguity.

I designed a haunting portrait of the protagonist, with a second figure — representing the twin sister — trapped within his silhouette, as a djinn in a lamp, evoking the hidden truths and invisible barriers that shape the story. The palette shifts between deep blood-reds and teal blues, merging grief, passion, and the eerie atmosphere of film setting.

The composition uses flowing, ink-like textures to represent the Djinn mythology subtly without overt illustration. The forms of smoke and spirit seem to seep from the characters, blurring identity and reality — a visual metaphor for the internal and external struggles faced by the protagonists.

Executed through a mix of digital painting and photomanipulation techniques, the goal was to create a film poster design that felt emotionally charged, cinematic, and timeless, steering clear of orientalist clichés often associated with stories set in the Middle East.

Rather than relying on typical genre tropes, the poster captures the universal themes of love, faith and deception through a surreal and poignant visual narrative.