A father, accompanied by his son, goes looking for his daughter who has disappeared from a rave in Morocco. When the duo crosses paths with a group of misfits, their trip over the Atlas Mountains gradually becomes a coming-of-age odyssey.
It draws you out of your seat with a mighty succession of sonic rumbles, then promptly knocks you back into it with the most jolting of tragedies.
Sirât 2025
"The latest from director Oliver Laxe, Sirât is the proverbial long, strange trip. Part adventure, part mystic-existential odyssey, it is the boldest enterprise to date from a film-maker who has a taste for grappling with the challenges of the real – as witnessed in the flame-steeped vistas of his last film, 2019’s Fire Will Come, set in Galicia. In Cannes Competition title Sirât, he teams Catalan actor Sergi López with a cast of non-professionals exuding pungent ‘real thing’ vibes, in a travelogue drama that raises the ante on his previous Moroccan venture, 2016’s Mimosas.
The film begins with hefty speaker cabinets hauled into place for a rave somewhere in the Moroccan desert. Amid the partying crowds of crusties, freaks and neo-hippies is a middle-aged man, Luis (López), accompanied by his young son Estebán (Bruno Nuñez) and their gentle-natured terrier Pipa. Luis is searching for his daughter, whom he hasn’t seen for five months. But the rave is broken up by soldiers who evacuate the area, announcing that a state of emergency has been declared." — Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily