Hanging Gardens
Synopsis
When As’ad and his friend, Amir (14), discover the doll can speak, they teach her the language of seduction in Arabic and set her to work. Business rockets, raising their profile lucratively with local teens and dangerously with the local patriarch’s enforcers. As’ad questions their exploitation of the doll, yet before he can save her from further degradation, she’s kidnapped. As’ad and Amir go after the prime suspect, only to discover that he’s turned informant.
The patriarch has As’ad and Amir kidnapped so that he can exact his own cruel and humiliating punishments. As’ad survives to complete the journey he began and reconcile himself to the choices he’s made on his own terms.
Official Selection Venice Film Festival 2022 - World premiere
Details
- Year
- 2022
- Type of project
- Features
- Running time
- 117 min
- Format
- 4K 2.35
- Director
-
Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradji
- Producer
- Huda Al Kadhimi, Margaret Glover, May Odeh
- Co-Producer
- Mohamed Hefzy, Daniel Ziskind, Ahmed Yassin
- Editor
- Kamal El Mallakh
- Screenwriter
- Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradji, Margaret Glover
- Director of Photography
- Duraid Munajim
- Production Designer
- Michael Rakowitz
- Sound
- Rana Eid
- Composer
- Suad Bushnaq
- Principal cast
- Wissam Diyaa Jawad Al Shakarji Hussain Muhammad Jalil Akram Mazen Ali
- Associate Producer
- Maytham Jbara
Genre
Categories
Production Status
Production Company
Iraq, Palestinian Territories, Egypt, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia co-production
Ishtar Film Production (IQ), Odeh Films (PS), Purattu Film Ltd (UK)
Purattu Film Ltd
Ahmed Yassin129 Hide Tower
Regency Street
London
SW1P 4AB
Sales Company
Page updates
This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.
See also
You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.
Fly Little Bird
Director: Johannes Boesiger
Year: 2026
Judith, an American singer-songwriter struggling with addiction, flees her Jewish relatives' West Bank settlement and finds refuge in Ramallah with Leena, a British-Indian journalist, and Rafiq, a Palestinian photographer. Judith falls in love with Rafiq and reconnects with music through local DJ Amira, but when her grandfather threatens military intervention, Leena escorts Judith to London. Rafiq doesn't follow. Although Judith performs again, her freedom and artistic expression prove fragile.
Tales of the Underworld
Director: Darren S. Cook
Year: 2026
Told through the eyes of a journalist digging too deep - exposing a ruthless criminal empire where missing men, police informants, and shifting loyalties make survival a dangerous game.
The State of Us
Director: Jake Harvey, Ollie Gardner
Year:
A coming-of-age odyssey of love, loss and life at breaking point. Over one riotous night in Bradford, Frankie steals his dying best friend Taylor out of hospice to outrun the inevitable. Euphoria spirals into chaos as Frankie unravels and Taylor fights to hold him together. Beneath exploding fireworks, the truth ignites: how far Frankie will go not to be left behind. At dawn, the illusion collapses, leaving Frankie to confront an impossible future: a world without Taylor.