Sirens (2022)
Director: Rita Baghdadi Run Time: 80 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2022
Country: United States, Lebanon
Language: English, Arabic
About the film:
World Premiere, 2022 Sundance Film Festival
Winner, Grand Jury Award, Outfest 2022
True to their name, Slave to Sirens — the first and only all-woman thrash metal band in the Middle East — are utterly magnetic. Amid a backdrop of political unrest and the heartbreaking unraveling of Beirut, five bandmates form a beacon of expression, resistance, and independence.
“A roof-raising rock-doc with heart to match its decibels”
—Neil Young for Screen Daily
At the band’s core are its two founding members, Lilas Mayassi and Shery Bechara, whose complicated relationship and subsequent tense fallout threatens the very fabric of the band. Joined by vocalist Maya Khairallah, bassist Alma Doumani, and drummer Tatyana Boughaba, these women negotiate their emotional journeys through young adulthood in tumultuous circumstances with grace, raw passion, and a ferocious commitment to their art.
About the filmmaker:
Rita Baghdadi is an Emmy award-winning documentary film director, producer and cinematographer known for the intimacy of her bold, character-driven films. Her work has been supported by Sundance, Tribeca, HBO, Netflix, Technicolor, Canon, Film Independent and the International Documentary Association, and has screened in top festivals worldwide including Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, True/False and CPH:DOX. Outside of her work as a director, Baghdadi is a frequent speaker and active mentor dedicated to empowering women of color to tell their own stories through documentary filmmaking. Recently, Rita was a mentor at the 2022 True/False Rough Cut Retreat.
Baghdadi’s feature documentary Sirens (2022) premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest.
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