‘Slave’ To The Music: Rock Doc About Beiruti All-Female Thrash Metal Band Slave To Sirens Gets North American Release
Expect to hear – and see – Sirens in theaters soon.
The North American rights to Sirens, a rock and roll documentary about Slave to Sirens, an all-female thrash metal band from Beirut, have been picked up by Oscilloscope Laboratories, a company founded by the late Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys.
Oscilloscope will give the film, which premiered at Sundance in January, an exclusive theatrical run before launching it on digital streaming platforms.
The movie was directed by Rita Baghdadi, who shot and produced the film along with producing partner Camila Hall. It explores the lives and music of Slave to Sirens, a band made up of five young metalheads whose nascent fame is happening amid the Lebanese revolution.
The bandmates wrestle with friendship, sexuality, and destruction, with their music serving as a refuge to Beirut’s youth culture. The heart of the band is its two founding members, Lilas Mayassi and Shery Bechara, whose complicated relationship and subsequent tense fallout threatens the very fabric of the band. More threatening, however, is Lebanon’s criminalization of homosexuality, as well as the wholly devastating effects of their country’s political regime. Despite their obvious challenges, the members of Slave to Sirens persist in trying to create a revolution of their own: living their truth.
The doc is produced by Baghdadi’s Endless Eye, Lady & Bird and Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne’s Animal Pictures in association with XTR. No release date is available at this time.
This is the latest rock doc for Oscilloscope, which also distributed Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio’s May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers.
In a statement, Baghdadi said, “I’m so excited to work with O-Scope in North America. I’ve admired their punk-rock spirit for years and I know they’ll be a meaningful partner on Sirens.”