The Secret Market
2017 · 22m · Ireland
Directed by Garret Daly, Martina McGlynn
Genres: drama, mystery, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Dr. Amy McCarthy, a chief surgeon with a seemingly perfect life, is directed to a mysterious auction where a secret from her past is up for the highest bidder; refusing to bid means exposure, but participating pulls her into the sinister underworld of a 'secret market' where private shame is openly traded.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
The premise inverts the blackmail thriller into a perverse marketplace where shame becomes currency and bidders are the real power brokers — it's morally sickening in exactly the way consensus filmmaking avoids, and that's precisely why it works.
The auction-as-ritual framework demonstrates formal sophistication in how it structures tension through economic logic rather than chase mechanics, positioning the film within a lineage of thrillers that weaponize social systems themselves.
The decision to stage the crisis in an auction house — where the camera holds on bidders' faces rather than the exposed secret — transforms a conventional blackmail plot into something about complicity and collective voyeurism, and that single tonal choice reframes everything.
Reviews
A smart, compelling thriller that builds up a fascinating world lurking underneath the prosperous, ordinary surfaces of the world.
A multi-award-winning short… an admirable craft of tension about shadows of the past, blackmail, truth, fear, competition and final happiness.
Festivals
- Rhode Island International Film Festival 2017, Grand Jury Prize for Best Screenplay
- Richard Harris International Film Festival 2017, Audience Award
- Irish Film and Television Academy Awards (IFTA) 2018, Nominated — Best Short Film