‘Sirāt’: Is This Oscar Contender with a Brutal Twist Actually Hopeful?

[Editor’s note: The following interview contains spoilers for “Sirāt.”]

In “Sirāt,” the wounds of five nomadic ravers are on full display — missing limbs and teeth, worn skin marked by scars and dirt from desert travel, and stories of heartbreaking loss behind them. To writer/director Oliver Laxe, it’s what makes them beautiful.

“I think we’re all broken, but they show this,” said Laxe, a guest on this week’s episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “It’s a mature thing to accept your scars, to be connected with your wound, to dance your wound, to celebrate your wound.”

Laxe references the 13th-century poet Rumi — who wrote, “The wound is the place where the light enters you” — to describe what he loves about these characters. They were inspired, like the film, by the ravers he met while traveling with Europe’s free party movement. A decade later, he would cast non-professionals from the underground rave scene, which he was part of, to create his nomadic caravan.

To Laxe, it’s the ravers’ awareness and acceptance of “the world as it is” that’s inspiring, a sharp contrast to Luis (Sergi López), who, along with his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), joins the caravan in their desperate search for his lost daughter. While on the podcast, Laxe discussed how Luis – who created to represent the “spectator’s point of view” – lives a far more mundane existence under the false assumption that there is order to the universe.

Said Laxe of the character, “[Luis] is one of these people who has certainty that there is not a leaf of any tree that doesn’t move for a perfect reason,  for a just and intelligent reason.”

It’s a perception Laxe hoped to shatter, both for the audience and Luis, in the film’s journey deep into the Sahara Desert, ”a place where you cannot hide yourself.” It’s a metaphorical journey in which each character is intentionally an archetype, and the film is grounded in symbolism. The military strife in the periphery is intentionally vague, designed simply to elicit a connection to the general geopolitical turmoil of 2026.

‘Sirāt’Courtesy Everett Collection

“I think we put too much weight into the images, so they are dead. I want my images to be alive,” Laxe said, explaining why he embraced leaving out details and explanations. “The key thing [about] ‘Sirāt’ is I had the strength to protect the images that I had when I was dancing 10-12 years ago.”

The relationship between image and its viewers is sacred to Laxe, a connection he sought to preserve without narrative interference — and to strengthen through bold use of sound and music.

“I’m a filmmaker who is looking for transcendence,” said Laxe. “That’s what we want, this kind of ecstatic rapture.”

Laxe wants “Sirāt” to be a metaphysical experience, with the audience feeling it in their body and being taken “out of their brains,” for which music and sound are key tools. Berlin-based techno producer DJ Kangding Ray’s electronic music brings this film’s open rave sequence to life but morphs into a more cathartic score as the film progresses.

“Electronic music is a pure vibration,” said Laxe. “Because you don’t know the source of these sounds, it allows you to evoke the mystery of life, the universe.”

It’s Laxe’s hope that the music invites a surrender to his film; he points to one of his favorite moments, when Luis dances in the desert, described as “praying with his body.”

Said Laxe, “In a subtle way, he was never so near his daughter as that moment. On a spiritual [level], he finds her, he understands her.”

It’s a bittersweet moment that the director knows leads to inevitable questions about what follows, a mid-film twist involving young Estaban and the van — an unforgettable moment that drags Luis “to hell,” while delivering one of the biggest and unexpected emotional gut punches in recent cinema. Laxe said he has trouble “detailing the archeology” of his intentions, or “assigning meaning to his images,” but his aim was clear.

“ My main goal was to make a spectator experience his death. It’s something I want to do myself. It’s part of my practice, to meditate on death. I think it’s healthy,” said Laxe of the devastating mid-film twist. “So, how to do this in the middle of the film? We found this idea that obviously I was afraid of at the beginning, because it’s really painful, and I don’t want to make a spectator suffer. I’m not sadistic.”

Ultimately, Laxe concluded the shocking scene was actually a way to “take care of the spectator, to shake him.” Explained the director, “Life never calls to tell you, ‘Next week, be careful.’ The film is about this, about how life doesn’t give you what you are looking for, life gives you what you need, and there is a difference.” It’s something Laxe’s nomadic ravers understand. “I hope, [the] spectators will accept this pain, and they will look inside, that was the purpose of making ‘Sirāt.’”

Laxe pointed to the film’s title, which in Arabic means “the way,” but also refers to a mythical bridge joining heaven and hell. It’s a thin line, with the path to paradise going through hell, and as Laxe detailed on the podcast, we often feel closer to life when grappling with the sadness or fear of death. It’s a thematic exploration that is directly related to the film’s unexpected ending.

“The question in ‘Sirāt’ is not why do my characters die?” said Laxe. “The question is, how do they die? This is the question from a spiritual perspective: Are you going die with dignity?”

There is an “end of the world” vibe to “Sirāt” that feels particularly relevant to this moment, which was intentional. Laxe told IndieWire he wanted to “make a generational film” in the spirit of “Easy Rider” and “Two-Lane Blacktop,” which captured a polarized and teetering society decades ago.

“The American films from the 1970s — I don’t know what they are talking about [Laxe was born in 1982 in Paris to Galician parents] — but I feel the energy of this decade, of this society that was so polarized, like nowadays, with this violence, but also with this kind of new conscience with the use of psychedelic therapies,” said Laxe. “We wanted to make a generational film. We wanted to connect with our time, and so in a way, you have to connect yourself with the pain that is in the world, but also with the fears.”

But Laxe doesn’t see “Sirāt” as a bleak film. As his characters are walking to death, they are also walking to light, a metaphor he thinks applies to how he sees, and his film reflects, our troubled world in 2026.

“ I’m really optimistic,” said Laxe. “ I think it’s like in the film, it’s difficult for us to change as a society, but life will push us to a limit, to an edge of that, life will ask us what it means to be a human being, and we will have to answer. We’ll have to be more human.”

“I’m really optimistic,” added Laxe. “Hopefully, in 30 years, we will see ‘Sirāt,’ and we will see us.”

“Sirāt” has been Oscar-nominated for Best International Feature and Best Sound.

To hear Oliver Laxe‘s full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch it at the video at the top of this page, or on IndieWire’s YouTube page.