Private Project

The secret life

The secret life is dealing with the indigenous people of Hunza and how the forefathers of Hunza valley converted a barren land into heaven by planting all kinds of trees over more than 300 hundred years. On the other hand, since the young generation has started to avail conventional education, they have forgotten about old rituals that respect nature; instead, they focus on how to keep a job and make money. They started to cut down trees and construct hotels and shops since Hunza is a significant tourist destination an influx of tourism is turning a heavenly like place into hell. A waste of resources, mass migrations due to lack of opportunities and nature is spoiling.
The story is told from the point of views of a dead tree and a Shaman .

  • Nadeem
    Director
  • Nadeem
    Writer
  • Goethe Instut and circus cinema
    Producer
  • Tilla baig
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short, Other
  • Genres:
    Drama, nature, adventure, ethnographic
  • Runtime:
    13 minutes 31 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 16, 2020
  • Country of Origin:
    Pakistan
  • Country of Filming:
    Pakistan
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Nadeem

Nadeem Alam Al Karimie is the co-founder of Circus Cinema and Art and Travel. There was no concept of watching films on the big screen in his hometown, Hunza valley. Circus Cinema aims to make one film every year based on real, local stories and showcase it for the local community to engage people. Art and Travel, on the other hand, is a social enterprise that raises awareness about the importance of art and mental health awareness, works with kids and art therapy. Nadeem A.Alakrimi is an independent filmmaker and photographer born and raised in Hunza Valley, Gilgit Baltistan. He graduated in Film and TV from National College of Arts Lahore in 2018. His work has been screened in several national and international film festivals including the Persian and Arab Gulf. In the International Arab film festival, Alnajh 2019 his film "Beedero" won the jury selection and best short film award

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

My moving imagery is all about rapid change and living a lot of lives simultaneously by an individual, two opposite shades of colors and forgotten tones in between. Having the background of film making, Art history, digital art. Movements like Dogma 95, Italian new wave, ethnographical tales influenced subconsciously and inspired me to explore human behaviors resulting my work to be leaning towards the realistic side in terms of capturing human elemets, expressions, behaviors to surroundings in the remotest regions.

I experienced and witnessed both human-nature harmony and destruction of nature by men, while growing up in one of small villages in the Karakorum range. The vanishing values towards nature bothered me, more than ever in last five years, where there were sounds of nature now we hear the disturbing sounds of wood cutter and construction machines.
In 2017, I was working on a doc-fiction called “Beedero” about the introduction of money in the lives of indigenous cultures, by 2018 we completed the execution, that is when I realized my body of work weither it is digital painting, photography or film making, it is much more influenced by real life basic struggles and challenges faced by people living near\by nature in the remotest regions of Pakistan.