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Berlin-based M-Appeal will handle world sales on Joaquín’s del Paso’s “The Garden We Dreamed,” a lyrical portrait of family love and human resilience powered by a high-stakes drama set in Mexico’s stunning Oyamel fir forest, home to myriad Monarch butterflies.
A step-up for Del Paso, whose well-received 2021 thriller “The Hole in the Fence” bowed at Venice Horizons, “The Garden We Dreamed” (“El Jardín Que Soñamos”) will world premiere next month at the Berlinale’s Panorama major sidebar section, the Berlin Film Festival announced Wednesday.
“The Garden We Dreamed” will be distributed in Mexico by Pimienta Films, headed by “Roma” producer Nicolás Celis.
Toplining Nehemie Bastien, who starred in the Cannes Festival’s 2021 Un Certain Regard title “Freda,” “The Garden We Dreamed” turns on Esther and Junior (Faustin Pierre), a Haitian couple, who along with Esther’s young daughters Flor and Aisha, are settled by a logging company in a remote mountainous forest.
“The Garden We Dreamed” does not skirt the precariousness of Junior’s job, as loggers and local villagers face off increasingly bitterly for their cut from the illegal decimation of the forest. The film’s heart, however, is how the family, led by Esther, carve out in their little makeshift shack on a hill a powerful space of love as Del Paso celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the surrounding nature of Monarch butterflies which dazzle Flor and magnificent Oyamel trees.
Del Paso on ‘The Garden We Dreamed’
“The film explores two migrations happening simultaneously: the Haitian exodus moving toward the U.S., and the Monarch butterflies traveling south from Canada in search of warmth,” Del Paso told Variety.
“These stories converge in a forest where human greed puts everything at risk. My intention was to create a drama where the ‘eternal magic’ of the forest contrasts with a high-stakes reality. Like my previous work, it focuses on the ‘collective’—in this case, a chosen family in extreme circumstances where every decision is existential,” he added.
Also written by Del Paso, “The Garden We Dreamed” stands out as a work of cinema, lensed with an ARRI Alexa 35 camera by Turkey’s ace DP (and now director) Gökhan Tiryaki, best known for his cinematography on Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Winter Sleep.”
In a sign of where higher-end non-English language film is moving, Del Paso captures bird song – the calls of the West Mexican Chachalaca and the Mexican Goldfinch (Jilguero), layered with the rhythmic drone of high-altitude insects – in an extraordinary two-and-a-half minute opening shot circling the forest at dawn before picking up on two approaching lorries, which feel like monstrous intruders in a garden of Eden.
“It is a sonic tapestry meant to ground the viewer in the beauty of what is being eroded, creating a sharp, unsettling contrast with the encroaching sound of the loggers’ trucks,” Del Paso commented.
Sound was designed and layered using Dolby Atmos at Carlos Reygadas and Natalia López’s Splendor Omnia post-production studios in a push for “sensory realism,” Del Paso added. “By focusing on the quiet dignity of the family’s struggle rather than melodrama, and using strong cinematic language to express what the characters are living (instead of a documentary-like approach), I hope to offer a portrait of resilience that challenges what audiences expect,” he told Variety.
M-Appeal’s Maren Kroymann and Pimienta Films’ Nicolás Celis on ‘The Garden We Dreamed’
“‘The Garden We Dreamed’ transforms global realities into a profoundly intimate and universally relatable story,” said M-Appeal CEO Kroymann. “More than a film, it’s a captivating cinematic experience – visually elevated by Gökhan Tiryaki’s extraordinary eye, through emotional performances and made immersive through its remarkable sound design. It sheds light on important environmental and human themes while carrying us along through a story where love and hope endure, even in the most fragile places.”
A producer on Natalia López’s “Robe of Gems,” a 2022 Berlin main competition player, Del Paso’s feature debut, 2016’s “Panamerican Machinery” won the top prize at Mexico’s Guadalajara Festival, while 2021’s “The Hole in the Fence” world premiered at Venice in its Horizons section and topped the Cairo Film Festival.
“Joaquín stands out as one of the most important filmmakers of his generation, a talent with a distinctive cinematic voice,” added Celis, Pimienta Films’ founder. “His work demands attention not only because it offers “fresh” stories, but because it is essential cinema, deeply crafted, authentic, and with a vision that stays with the audience. For us as distributors, this film felt vital: a beautifully told story that draws you in and lingers long after the credits.”
Production Details
“In these times, when political contexts and power structures are wearing us down, what remains is to seek the intimate experience of existence through our own eyes and our own strength, accompanying one another,” said Fernanda de la Peza, founder-CEO of Mexico City’s Cárcava Cine, which lead produces with Amondo Cine, a film collective based in Warsaw, Delhi and Mexico City, both companies co-founded by Del Paso.
“The Garden We Dreamed” is produced in association with Mexico’s Península Films & Entertainment (“Danyka”) , Atómica (“Malva”), Producciones Espiral, Alebrije Producciones (“Amores Perros”), Sula Entertainment (“Lost in the Night”) and Stellium.
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