Sirāt. 2025. France/Spain. Directed by Oliver Laxe. Screenplay by Laxe, Santiago Fillol. With Sergi López, Bruno Núñez Arjona, Stefania Gadda. DCP courtesy NEON. In Spanish, French; English subtitles. 115 min.
One of the year’s most astonishing films, Sirāt opens on the collective trance of a desert rave unfolding against the ochre cliffs of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains. Luis (Sergi López) and young son (Bruno Núñez Arjona) roam around the gyrating bodies in search of his missing daughter, Marina. Before any leads materialize, armed soldiers break up the nomadic party due to some unnamed calamity, and the pair link up with a motley group of bohemians—remarkably performed by nonprofessional actors who Galician auteur Oliver Laxe met at raves over the years—on a different trip altogether. Whether in search of the next desert party Marina might be at, or driving away from the specter of a disintegrating world, Luis takes a visceral journey into the depths of the desert, where obstacles and propulsive plot twists multiply along with moments of ecstatic transcendence. As the caravan goes geographically and metaphysically astray, they discover the power of kinship and connection in the face of utter desolation. Cleverly remixing the likes of Mad Max and The Wages of Fear, Sirāt, (winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and Spain’s entry in this year’s Academy Awards) is a cinematic experience like no other.
Tickets are available to members at the Explore category and above beginning two weeks before each screening date. Additional tickets will be released to members and the general public one week before each screening date. Please note that space is extremely limited and tickets will be in high demand. Tickets can be reserved at moma.org/contenders beginning at 10:30 a.m. ET.
For the Contenders series, due to limited availability, members at the Explore category and above receive two free tickets per membership.