Oliver Laxe. HU/هُوَ. Dance as if no one were watching you

From 17 December to 20 April 2026, the Reina Sofía Museum (Sabatini Building - Space 1) will host an installation that showcases the latest work by Oliver Laxe, one of the most internationally renowned contemporary filmmakers, based on his latest film, Sirat (Jury Award at Cannes 2025).

This film is set at a rave, enabling Laxe to open a new cinematographic opportunity to reflect on the practice of collaboration, as well as to delve deeper into this microethnography, in the words of McKenzie Wark. Filmed on location in Morocco and Aragon, this film production becomes the filmmaker's latest personal essay, in which mysticism, personal search, learning about other non-rationalist cultures and the hybridisation of genres all come together.  The screening of the film within the context of the Reina Sofía Museum is presented as an installation that challenges the inherent limitations of the cinema screen.

The presentation of this latest work by Oliver Laxe also serves as a pretext to showcase a selection of other films by the filmmaker (feature films and experimental short films) that portray the complexity and wealth of his cinematographic practice, in which he often acts, revealing a degree of personal involvement that becomes inseparable from the film.

Oliver Laxe (Paris, 1982) is one of the most internationally renowned contemporary filmmakers. His cinematographic practice addresses social issues through familiar contexts and site-specific research. By interweaving fiction and reality, he constructs an extremely personal form of experimental poetics in which different film genres and languages coexist.

His early works in S-8mm and 16mm film format were developed as part of the experimental film platform, no.w.here, in London, where he completed his film studies.  In 2007, he moved to Tangier, Morocco, where he set up the Dao Byed project, a film workshop for underprivileged children in the Maghreb. This collaborative and community-based experience would be ever present in Laxe's subsequent filmmaking, which led to his first feature film: Todos vosotros sois capitanes (You Are All Captains, 2009), which won the FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes International Film Festival.  This first film was followed by Mimosas (2016) and O que arde (2019), both of which obtained critical acclaim and won prestigious awards.

Image Credit:

Oliver Laxe, HU/هُوَ. Dance as if no one were watching you, installation, 2025