Interview: ‘Sirāt’ writer/director Óliver Laxe on raves and the art of fragility
In Maker’s Dozen, we ask folks in and around the film industry 12 questions and have them ask one of us.
Óliver Laxe is a director, screenwriter, and actor best known for his films You All Are Captains, Mimosas, Fire Will Come, and Sirāt, which was nominated for Best International Film and Best Sound at the 2025 Oscars. (Read our review.)
In this interview, Óliver spoke about casting non-professional actors, tips for going to raves, the challenges of filming in the desert, how cinema is the art of hiding, and more!
This interview has been edited for content and clarity.
1. What’s the Óliver Laxe origin story?
I’m just a filmmaker of images. I have images and they are tasty. I like to serve spectators, making images and sounds and inviting them to a catharsis, to a physical experience in a theater.
2. Tell me about the dog that played Pippa, and are they OK?
So Pippa is an actress, and she’s OK. Nobody has to be depressed. And Lupa, who is the dog of Jade, one of the ravers in the film, passed away just one week after the end of the shooting. She was two years old. So in a way, it’s like she came to this world to play in that film.
3. Your cast of ravers consists of non-professional actors. When casting, are you going off a vibe and then building the character around it, or something else?
I’m always open to life. I like how life surprises you. But when we’re looking for an actor, we don’t care if they’re professional or unprofessional. When you look for an actor, you look for mystery. Cinema is the art of hiding. But it’s not easy to find mystery. It’s not easy to find a human being inhabited by something. So what we look for if there is no mystery is for fragility. I’m really touched by fragility. I think that we are fragile, most of us. So when we have fragility in front of the camera, I think we like it. And these actors, they don’t play. They are just themselves. And that’s powerful in the film, I think.
4. Part of the journey in the film is the bridge between a real family and the chosen family. Did you do anything before or during filming to help the cast form those bonds or prepare for the intensity of the shoot?
This is my fourth film. I did all my films with people without experience. So in a way I have my method, and the name of my method is time and patience. With Sirāt we did several workshops, and once we decided on the five ravers we invited all of them to my home. I’m living in the countryside in the north of Spain and I have a big barn. It’s a good place for rehearsals, so we were living together for a month and a half, getting to know each other, building confidence, watching films, going to the forest to pick up wood. Every film is tough, but my cinema in particular is really tough. We are pushed to our psychological and physical limits. So you need to build a kind of loyalty, a kind of security.
5. While filming, you had to deal with sandstorms, the heat, and broken cameras. Are there other challenges of filming in the desert that may not be as obvious, or any upsides?
I mean, you have to sleep in tents. So from the point of view of the production, it’s complicated. Sometimes we could go to hotels, but most of the time we were in camps. But the most difficult thing always is you. But not only in the desert, in a city too—the filmmaker is the problem. If he has the capacity to control his fears, his ego, if he’s still motivated to do the film. It’s tough. You are confronted with yourself. To keep the faith on what you are doing, this is the challenge. You try to think the film is something higher than you. So you try to serve the film. And also you are confident in your team. Most of the days when I was not really motivated or tired or whatever, I had my amazing team driving the film. My director of photography, my scriptwriter. I’m really well-surrounded.
6. I’ve read in other interviews that your films usually start with an image, in this case, trucks racing through the desert. How do you go about expanding on those images after that initial impression?
First you have the images. The images are, for this film, the essence of the film. After that you have the intentions. And the third thing is the ideas. But ideas are the last one. The problem nowadays is the filmmakers that are starting with the ideas. No. That’s why most films are really cold, not really visceral. It’s like they are made by mathematicians. And it’s a pity. So in my case, the intentions are important but you have to trust the images. The images are like the flavor. The taste of the images is the way the film kidnaps you to exist.
7. While there are universal themes of grief, family, and struggle, is there anything American audiences may not know about Morocco, its culture, or the history of French/Spanish colonial rule that would be beneficial to learn about?
I think the film is made with a strong, deep inspiration in Sufism. It’s made with the spirit of North Africa or the spirit of Sufism, which is like esoterical Islam. When you go to the essence of a religion or a spiritual practice, you dialogue with the others. This film speaks about really essential things—life, death, family. We have a memory in our bodies. We have a memory of all these things. So, yes, I’m happy how it’s going here, how people connect with the film.
8. What, in your opinion, is a good double feature with Sirāt?
Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky. We wanted to build something similar to that zone of Stalker with the desert. You go to the desert and it’s a desert, but it could be something else.
“When you look for an actor, you look for mystery. Cinema is the art of hiding.”
9. I’ve always been “rave curious,” but have never gone to one. For someone going to a rave for the first time, what should they look for or prepare for to have a positive experience without dying?
They have to be careful with drugs. And they have to trust that on a dance floor, the body will give them information. They will be connected sometimes with their strength and sometimes with their fragility. And they have to practice dancing as if nobody’s watching them. That’s the thing. You are there, you are dancing, but you don’t care. You are connected. You are looking inside. You are not thinking of the others. Obviously, you love the others, you are connected, you take care of the others, but you cross the minefield inside. Raving is an expression of something that we were doing for thousands and thousands of years as a ceremony. It’s to go as a society and perch on a dance floor. It’s really necessary.
10. In what ways are you different now from when you first started working on the film years ago?
As a person, I have less fear of dying. I think I’m more connected with my shadow side. That’s healthy, you know, with my wound. So more fragile. I let myself be more fragile, like ravers. And as a filmmaker, all my intuitions about what is an image, about the power of cinema, about the relation between cinema and therapy, are finding a place. I see in front of me a field of experimentation that stimulates me a lot. I would like to push it even more with the next film, to go even further. And if Sirāt is shock therapy, I would like to make a film that has less shock and more therapy.
11. As an artist who works in film, a project is often years of your life. What is your process for letting go and moving on so that you’re open to receiving those images?
It was full when I went to Cannes. I was editing these images and I had a good rest touring with Sirāt. It was just two or three months ago, after this break, that I was having new images. Most of the images I have dancing on dance floors or when I’m doing a ceremony, meditating, praying. These are the moments where I write my script. I’m not the only one. An artist is connected with his unconscious. His unconscious is connected with the collective unconscious. So that’s the way I work. As I said before, I don’t go to the office.
12. What music have you been listening to lately?
This morning I was listening to an electronic musician called Rrose. I was dancing a little bit around the room.
+1. What’s your question for us?
Where are you from? And what are the people of Chicago called?
James: I’m from Chicago. And we’re called Chicagoans. The city’s name comes from a Native American word for smelly onion. Originally it was a swamp and there were onions that grew up out of the swamp, so that’s where the name comes from.