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The Secret Garden: A Tale in Eight Chapters
A film by Nour Ouayda
The inhabitants of a city awake one morning to find that never-before-seen trees, plants, and
flowers suddenly erupted throughout the streets and in the squares. Strange and mysterious
events start taking place as Camelia and Nahla investigate the origins of these new and peculiar
creatures.
The Secret Garden (2023)
27′ 15”
Colour
Arabic with English subtitles
S8 and 16mm finished on digital
The Secret Garden is an award-winning short film by Beirut based filmmaker, film critic and programmer Nour Ouayda. Her films experiment with various forms of fiction writing in cinema. She is a member of The Camelia Committee with Carine Doumit and Mira Adoumier and part of the editorial committee of the Montreal-based online film journal Hors Champ. Between 2018 and 2023, she was deputy director at Metropolis Cinema Association in Beirut where she managed and developed the Cinematheque Beirut project.
The Secret Garden has won awards and accolades including a Special Mention NEW:VISION Competition, CPH:DOX, Denmark (2023), Critic’s Award for Best Short Film, Gabès Cinema Fen, (2023), Best Experimental Film Award, FestCurtas Vila do Condo, Portugal (2023) and
Award for Best Film, International Competition, Beijing International Short Film Festival, China (2023).
The Secret Garden is programmed in collaboration with Hind Mezaina and Tribe Magazine.
Tribe is a non-profit publication and platform focused on documenting photography, and moving image from the Arab world.
Hind Mezaina is an artist, film curator and writer from Dubai, and the Moving Image Editor at Tribe.
