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
| Aug 20 |
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"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