‘Sirât’ of Oliver Laxe has been chosen as the film that will represent Spain in the Oscars of 2026. Therefore, it aspires to the nomination in best non -English speech film. It competed with ‘pilgrimage’ by Carla Simón and ‘deaf’ by Eva Libertad. The latter was a drama about the challenge of facing maternity and fatherhood both in the deaf world and in the listener, and Carla Simón’s great tape recounts in the search for herself after the death of her parents by AIDS, adding a certain magical component. But it is Oliver Laxe’s film that left with more options.
The film tells the journey of a desperate father who is looking for a daughter missing by Raves de Morocco. ‘Sirât’ already won the jury award in Cannes and has surprised with its enormous reception, for example, at the French box office.
If in Spain he got 2.6 million euros, being one of this year’s national phenomena as analyzed, in France, he has managed to exceed one million collection in his first week. It is obvious that it will raise more outside our country than inside, as the country reports. At this time, it is not known what the ‘Sirât’ roof can be.
In fact, in the United States, Neon will distribute the tape. This is the same company that distributed ‘parasites’, ‘The triangle of sadness’, ‘Titane’, ‘Anatomy of a fall’ or ‘Anora’. Difficult, different and diverse films that have ended with enormous recognition and in many cases also, huge box office success.
It is very difficult to achieve such a degree of popularity, obviously, but it is sure that as a family drama, unusually marked by techno, with an imaginative staging, and with a powerful final reflection on the world that we live in general, and migration in particular, the academics may like more than the typical Spanish social drama that we have tried to export without success too many times. This risk had to be run.
It is unknown how priority it can be ‘Sirât’ for Neon in the race to Hollywood: it will also depend on what appears in the first Shortlist of 15 pre-nominated for Oscar on December 15. The nominations occur on January 22 and the Oscar on March 15. Among the competition for ‘Sirât’ are already the Norway ‘sentimental value’ of Joachim Trier or ‘La Voz de Hind’ from Tunisia (on a 6 -year -old Palestinian girl killed), plus the countries that have not yet decided their candidacy.
