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Nour Ouayda


Nour Ouayda (Canada/Lebanon) is a filmmaker and film programmer born in Montréal, Canada, in 1991. She received a BA in Audiovisual Studies from the University of Saint-Joseph in Beirut (2014) and a Masters in Cinema Studies with a focus on research-creation from the University of Montréal (2017). Ouayda’s work explores the multiple relationships between image, text, voice, and sound, through filmmaking, film programming, and writing. She conceives these gestures as a single ecosystem that provides the framework, resources, and infrastructures that make it possible to pursue a cinematic practice through different forms and formats. Her films, including One Sea, 10 Seas (2019), I Was Grateful the Wind Tore Out My Camera’s Microphone (2020), and Not All Things that Shine Are Beautiful (2022), among other works, have been exhibited at festivals and museums internationally, including the Museo Reina Sofia, Austrian Filmmuseum, CPH:DOX, FIDMarseille, ARKIPEL Jakarta Film Festival, Madre Museum, Cinéma du Réel, EXiS, Images Festival, Open City Documentary Festival, Viennale, L’Alternativa Barcelona, Documenta Madrid, Centre Pompidou, Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal, Fronteira Brasil, Âge d’Or Exprmntl, Cinemateca de Bogotá, Sursock Museum, Anthology Film Archives, La cinemathèque québécoise, la lumière collective, and the Korea Film Archive. The Secret Garden (2023) received the Boundless Vision Award at Images Festival, the Best Experimental Film award at Curtas Vila do Conde, an Honourable Mention in the international competition at Media City Film Festival, and a special mention in the NEW:VISION Competition at CPH:DOX. Between 2018 and 2023, she was the Partnerships Coordinator, then Deputy Director, at Metropolis Cinema Association in Beirut, where she managed and developed the Cinematheque Beirut project. She is a member of The Camelia Committee with Carine Doumit and Mira Adoumier and part of the editorial committee of the Montréal-based online film journal Hors Champ. She lives and works in Montréal, Québec, and Beirut, Lebanon, where she also teaches film programming.




The Secret Garden, Nour Ouayda, Canada/Lebanon, 16mm > digital, 27 min, 2023

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.

This film is now streaming globally online. Click here to view.




Towards the Sun, Nour Ouayda, Canada/Lebanon, 16mm > digital, 17 min, 2019

You are now in the main hall of the National Museum in Beirut. A guard reminds you that you are encouraged to touch the archeological objects. A voice in your headset suggests that you lick the stone. You are now facing a hole in the wall on the lower left corner of a mosaic. The voice in your headset indicates that it was made by a sniper. Out of curiosity, you dial 1-9-9-1 to listen to the rest of the story.

This film is now streaming globally online. Click here to view.


These films are co-presented with Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto and Three Fold, Detroit.

Image credits: all artworks, stills, and portraits courtesy of the artist © Nour Ouayda.

View next: Christopher Harris, as part of Media City Film Festival 27th Edition: Spotlight Series



Founded in 2020, Three Fold is an independent quarterly based in Detroit that presents exploratory points of view on arts, culture, and society in addition to original works in various media, including visual art, literature, film and the performing arts. We solicit and commission contributions from artists, writers, and activists around the world. Three Fold is a publication of Trinosophes Projects, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in the historic Eastern Market neighborhood in downtown Detroit. Click here to check out Three Fold’s events page and view a schedule of the publication’s on-site activities.

Three Fold recognizes, supports, and advocates for the sovereignty of Michigan’s twelve federally-recognized Indian nations, for historic Indigenous communities in Michigan, for Indigenous individuals and communities who live here now, and for those who were forcibly removed from their Homelands. We operate on occupied territories called Waawiiyaataanong, named by the Anishinaabeg and including the Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa), and Bodewatomi (Potawatomi) peoples. We hold to commit to Indigenous communities in Waawiiyaataanong, their elders, both past and present, and future generations.