On Location peels again the curtain on some of your favourite movies, tv reveals, and extra. This time, we check out Sirāt.
Spanish filmmaker Óliver Laxe first imagined Sirāt as a singular imaginative and prescient in 2011. “I started with this idea of making a film in the desert with trucks driving fast through the sand,” he says. “I always start with images.”
At the time, Laxe was dwelling in Morocco, a rustic to which he felt a deep connection. That grew to become the best location for the movie, a couple of father (Sergi López) who’s looking for his lacking daughter at a distant rave alongside along with his younger son (Bruno Núñez Arjona) and their canine. The household quickly joins a gaggle of ravers in a journey throughout the Sahara Desert, the place surreal tragedy after surreal tragedy befalls them.
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Laxe and his crew in the end shot the movie, which is nominated for Best International Feature Film on the Oscars, in Spain and Morocco, from May by means of July 2024—a very scorching time to be within the desert. “Art is about going through the limit,” Laxe says. “That’s how I do my job. It has to be difficult to achieve beauty. In a tree, the good fruit are never in reach of your hand. You have to climb the tree and it’s risky to climb the tree, but you will have very good views from the top.”
Because Laxe had lived in Morocco for over a decade, he was accustomed to the landscapes and languages. He discovered many of the places himself, each in individual and utilizing Google Maps. The story shifts between the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains that border it to the north.
“These two spaces are perfect for Sirāt because in the mountains are a place for existentialism,” Laxe explains. “You ask yourself how small you are, about your mission in life. I mean, And the response to that existentialism is to surrender. The desert is a place for surrendering.”
For Laxe, making a movie set in a particular place is a approach of giving again. He’s in opposition to tourism for the sake of tourism and as an alternative encourages individuals to hunt out the places from Sirāt as vacationers. “It can’t just be about consuming places for Instagram,” he says. “That’s why I make films—to balance this craziness. When I’m shooting in these places I spend time there with the people.”