The Garden We Dreamed
(El jardín que soñamos)
Joaquín del Paso
There’s something off about the seemingly peaceful lives Junior and Esther have built for themselves in the middle of a Mexican forest. The Haitian couple is there on a temporary stop, working for illegal loggers, and they have created a small haven for the woman’s two daughters, far from the nearest human settlement. But there’s only so much they can do to protect them, and the deep complexities of their situation will soon catch up to them.
Joaquín del Paso’s third feature film draws you in with intensity, underscoring the lush greens and vivid soundscape of the wild forest, and placing humans as arresting figures determined to destroy it. As the Monarch butterflies that often fly through the shots in the film, the family at its center is on a path of migration, trying to find solace in foreign lands, caught in the middle of the tensions between the local populations trying to defend their forest and those wanting to exploit it for benefit, at the mercy of their ups and downs. When violence appears with ease and becomes part of their everyday life, it’s a sign that their journey must go on. But where could they finally find the garden they are dreaming of?
1 May 2026
18:15 h, Eldorado Filmtheater
More information
| Direction | Joaquín del Paso |
| Country | Mexico |
| Production year | 2026 |
| Duration | 100 min |
| Language | Haitian Creole, Spanish |
| Language Version | OV with English Subs |
| Genre | Drama |
| Production | Joaquín del Paso, Fernanda de la Peza, Itzel Sierra, Eduardo Díaz Casanova |
| Production company | Amondo Cine & Cárcava Cine |
| Distribution | m-appeal |
| Cast | Nehemie Bastien, Faustin Pierre, Kimaëlle Holly Preville, Rut Aicha Pierre Nelson, Carlos Esquive |
| Director of Photography | Gökhan Tiryaki |
| Script | Joaquín del Paso |
| Montage | Raul Barreras |
| Sound | Anuar Yahya Valdovinos |
| Music | Rogelio Sosa, Kyle Dixon, Michael Stein |
| Sound Design | Lena Esquenazi, Valeria Mancheva |
MALAGA 2026: BEST DIRECTOR, BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
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About the director
Mexican director Joaquín del Paso studied at the Polish National Film School in Lodz, where he earned a Master in arts. Maquinaria Panamericana, his first feature film, premiered at the Berlinale Forum in 2016. The film was later screened at more than 60 international festivals. The Hole in the Fence, his second feature film, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti section. Joaquin is a founding member of Cárcava, a production company based in Mexico City, and Amondo Films, a film collective based in Warsaw, Delhi and Mexico City.
Press reviews
“A standout in this year’s Panorama program at Berlin, The Garden We Dreamed is a small-scale production that nonetheless has real cinematic heft — in large part thanks to striking widescreen lensing by Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s regular DP Gökhan Tiryaki — and urgent human stakes that steadily vault this intimate, delicately sensory film into heart-in-mouth survival thriller territory.” - Guy Lodge, Variety
“There is no shortage of films that deal with refugees’ stories, but many of them focus on either the trauma of the journey or the Kafka-esque administrative struggles to secure documentation once they arrive at their chosen destination. Far fewer offer moments of stillness and reflection, which makes the first act of this sensitive portrait of a newly-found family unusual and affecting.” - Wendy Ide, Screen Daily
International Feature Film Program
