Oliver Laxe’s ‘Sirât’ receives two Oscar nominations for drama about rave culture

Oliver Laxe’s film Sirât received two nominations on Thursday for the 98th Academy Awards, which will be presented on March 15. The Spanish contender has been nominated for Best International Feature Film and Best Sound. The team watched the nomination announcement together in Madrid, inside the lobby of the Telefónica building, Spain’s oldest skyscraper (the telecom company is one of the film’s producers), along with friends and members of the press. Laia Casanovas, Amanda Villavieja and Yasmina Praderas received their first Oscar nominations for their impressive sound design. They are the first all-female team to be nominated for the award.

Before the announcement, Laxe, 43, spoke to his team and the media, thanking them for their support and the film’s journey since Cannes. “We’ve already won here. Let’s enjoy it, please. This energy is wonderful, whatever happens.” The feature-length drama had made five shortlists for the awards that had been announced weeks earlier.

For the filmmaker, “now is the time to enjoy it.” He then praised his sound colleagues: “Have you seen their rivals? The budget they had? They’re dinosaurs... but the little mammals survived.”

As for the future, he has asked for “peace and quiet” for now. “I’m excited about the Oscars because it gets people, my neighbors, my colleagues excited. I’m also very happy for the filmmakers who are on this journey, like those of us who are distributed in the U.S. by Neon. It’s been a very good year.” As an aside, he said that he had contacted his grandparents in the morning. “That gave me good vibes for the day.”

The last Spanish film to win the Oscar for Best International Feature Film was Alejandro Amenábar’s The Sea Inside in 2004.

Sirât began its journey at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize. Since its release in Spain at the beginning of last June, it has also performed well at the box office, having already attracted 440,000 viewers and grossed over €3 million.

Last Saturday, at the European Film Awards, it won five trophies: editing, sound, production design, casting direction, and cinematography. Only the Norwegian film Sentimental Value surpassed it with six.

The drama follows a father (Sergi López) who, along with his young son, searches for his twenty-something daughter in the world of raves. Guided by a handful of ravers, this disoriented and ordinary man crosses Morocco’s mountains and the Sahara Desert in a film that pays tribute to both adventure movies and 1970s cinema.

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