Spain has selected director Oliver Laxe’s mind-boggling desert odyssey “Sirât” as its official entry for the best international feature film category at the 98th Academy Awards.
“Sirât” was subject of a high-profile pick-up for North America by Neon, announced mid-Cannes Festival after its world premiere in main competition, raising the question, as Variety has noted, about how the U.S. distributor will juggle four high-profile titles all selected by their countries for the Oscar race: Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” representing Norway; Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent,”put forward by Brazil; Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice” for Korea and now “Sirât” for Spain. It’s a good problem to have, however.
Spain’s submission announcement was made Wednesday by Pablo Berger, who scored an animated feature nomination last year for “Robot Dreams,” while his silent movie Blancanieves was chosen as Spain’s entry for the 2013 Academy Awards.
The choice was based on a vote by members of the Spain’s Academy of the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after ample screenings of films over summer, which were whittled down to three finalists: “Sirât,” Carla Simon’s “Romería” and Eva Libertad’s “Deaf.”
As with submissions made for international feature Oscar contention by Brazil on Monday (Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent”) and Colombia yesterday (“A Poet”), the deciding factor swaying voters looks likely to have been “Sirât’s” Cannes Film Festival play packing the Neon pick-up; a world premiere in main competition which sparked rave reviews – Variety hailed “Sirât” as an excruciatingly tense, escalatingly insane road trip through a desert purgatory – and a Cannes Jury Prize which marks Laxe as now a major Spanish auteur.
The Match Factory has sold out major markets worldwide, guaranteeing more attention from voters spread ever more outside the U.S.. Bowing in Spain, “Sirât” was released June 6 by BTeam Pictures and had grossed a robust €2.7 million ($3.2 million) by Sept. 7.
A conscious step towards broader audiences by Laxe, facilitated by backing from the biggest pay-TV/SVOD player Movistar Plus+, “Sirât” also counts among its co-producers on Pedro and Agustin’s Almodóvar’s El Deseo, which has a larger experience of scoring Oscar nominations and wins than any other company in Spanish history.
“Sirat’s” submission also marks a large achievement for Movistar Plus+ which only announced its first production slate of movie originals in January 2024, including “Sirât,” made up of what Guillermo Farré, Movistar Plus+ head of original films & Spanish cinema, have called “event auteur” movies. Those are of course he kind of films which resonate with Academy members in and outside Hollywood.
