Sirens

Released Sep 30, 2022

1 hr. 18 min.

Documentary

Music

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98%

47 Reviews

Tomatometer

89%

Fewer than 50 Ratings

Audience Score

SIRENS intimately chronicles the lives and music of Slave to Sirens, a band made up of five young metalheads whose burgeoning fame is set against the backdrop of the Lebanese revolution. Its members wrestle with friendship, sexuality, and destruction as their music serves as a refuge to Beirut's youth culture. 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. An even greater looming threat, 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.

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Critics Consensus

A documentary with gripping narrative appeal, Sirens pays invigorating tribute to the life-altering power of truth, friendship, and rock & roll.

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Louis E

Incredible, provocative, and masterfully filmed.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

04/25/23

Full Review

Boki R

Exceptional filmmaking and wonderfully human stories portrayed in settings so authentic that it feels like a stroke of destiny for cameras to be present in the moment. A heart-wrenching yearning for freedom of love and music, amidst political and social chaos and intolerance. There are moments where the camera captures silent expressions that say so much and reveal the inner struggles of the real-life characters living in a world that is not made for them. These five women somehow persist and seem impervious to the devastation around them, including the horrific explosion in Beirut in 2020. The director Rita Baghdadi never plays the female power card, their strength is simply present in every shot, regardless of what they are going through. But what stands out the most is the emotional tension between the two band leads, so authentic and palpable, unmatched by the best of fictionalized accounts of conflicted love and friendship. Easily the best documentary of 2022.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

john d

Beautiful. Saw this at Outfest in LA and then in NY last week - a profound look at what it is to be a musician, let alone one of a liberated mind trying to exist in a schitzophrenic country (Lebanon)... and world... a deep stare into the brutality of a music industry, the price of youthful emotional ambiguity, and societal hypocrisy. But the hope is in the persons and their bravery.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

kate e

Loved this doc about the first all female metal band from the Middle East! Baghdadi did a great job of exploring life in Lebanon not only as a metal musician but also as a woman - it's all related. It's not easy to be an all female band anywhere, let alone in a region where metal is still a nascent genre. The doc also explored the effects of the economic crisis and the Beirut explosion on the women's lives and journey as a band. The filmography was really beautifully done and I enjoyed the score as well.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

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Rita Baghdadi

Director

Lilas Mayassi

Self

Shery Bechara

Self

Maya Khairallah

Self

Alma Doumani

Self

Tatyana Boughaba

Self

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Sirens: Trailer 1

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Lena Wilson

TheWrap

Lyrical coming-of-age tales are a dime a dozen at Sundance, where “Sirens” premiered at the beginning of the year, but few such films are as impressive as this one.

Oct 1, 2022

Full Review

Sheila O'Malley

RogerEbert.com

A collage of yearning, ambition, and what can only be called gumption.

Rated: 3/4

Sep 30, 2022

Full Review

Glenn Kenny

New York Times

The ending... is heart-tugging and rousing, even for non-metal heads.

Sep 29, 2022

Full Review

Nuha Hassan

Off Colour

Sirens is a compassionate movie that expresses the frustrations that these women go through in their lives while shining a light on their togetherness.

Sep 8, 2023

Full Review

Ren Jender

INTO

If someone had told me one of my favorite films from Sundance would be about a thrash metal band in Lebanon, I wouldn’t have believed them. But Rita Baghdadi’s Sirens—executive produced in part by Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne—is one of the rare...

Rated: A

Jan 10, 2023

Full Review

Panos Kotzathanasis

Asian Movie Pulse

Truth be told, some more focus on the rest of the members of the group would also be welcome here, but in the end, “Sirens” emerges as an excellent documentary that manages to present the story of the group and its members rather eloquently

Rated: 7

Dec 26, 2022

Full Review

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Synopsis

SIRENS intimately chronicles the lives and music of Slave to Sirens, a band made up of five young metalheads whose burgeoning fame is set against the backdrop of the Lebanese revolution. Its members wrestle with friendship, sexuality, and destruction as their music serves as a refuge to Beirut's youth culture. 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. An even greater looming threat, 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.

Director: Rita Baghdadi
Executive Producer: Danielle Renfrew Behrens, John Boccardo, Derek Esplin, Kathryn Everett, Natasha Lyonne, Maya Rudolph, Dave Pell, Bryn Mooser
Screenwriter: Rita Baghdadi
Distributor: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Production Co: Endless Eye Productions
Genre: Documentary, Music
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 30, 2022, Limited

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