Here’s your first official look at the Cannes award winner and Spanish Oscar hopeful Sirat.
Directed by Oliver Laxe, Neon will release the film in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, February 6, followed by a nationwide rollout in late February.
The surprise Oscar contender has been shortlisted for five categories: Best International Feature (Spain), Best Casting, Best Cinematography, Best Music (Original Score), and Best Sound. The sound team is the first all-female team ever to be shortlisted.
Since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize, the film has also been nominated for two Golden Globes — Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Score — and nine European Film Awards, including Best European Film, Best Director, Actor, and Screenwriter. It has also scored four London Critics’ Circle noms.
The film was produced by Domingo Corral, Oliver Laxe, Xavi Font, Pedro Almodóvar, Augustín Almodóvar, Esther Garcia, Oriol Maymo, Mani Mortazavi, and Andrea Queralt. Santiago Fillol and Laxe co-wrote the pic.
The film had a one-week Academy qualifying run in November. The pic will open at Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Center in New York, and Landmark’s Nuart Theatre and AMC Burbank 16 in Los Angeles on February 6.
The official synopsis reads: A father (Sergi López) and his son arrive at a rave deep in the mountains of southern Morocco. They are searching for Mar — daughter and sister — who vanished months ago at one of these endless, sleepless parties. Surrounded by electronic music and a raw, unfamiliar sense of freedom, they hand out her photo again and again. Hope is fading, but they push through and follow a group of ravers heading to one last party in the desert. As they venture deeper into the burning wilderness, the journey forces them to confront their own limits.
Check out the trailer above.