Thrash Metal Arab Girl on Girl Love ‘Sirens’ Is Utterly Charming

Sirens is an utterly charming new movie about two Arab girls in love from director Rita Baghdadi.

Set on the outskirts of Beirut, Lilas and Shery, and fellow thrash metal bandmates Maya, Alma and Tatyana (Slave to Sirens), wrestle with friendship, sexuality, and destruction in their pursuit of becoming thrash metal rock stars.

An official selection of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, and executive produced by Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph, Sirens  opens October 7th in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal and October 14th at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. This is part of a nationwide theatrical rollout of the film that starts September 30th in New York City.

From the synopsis: On the outskirts of Beirut, Lilas and her thrash metal bandmates, Shery, Maya, Alma, and Tatyana (Slave to Sirens), have big dreams but few opportunities. When the band’s appearance at a UK music festival isn’t the life-changer they had hoped for, Lilas comes home to Lebanon on the brink of collapse. At the same time, the complicated relationship between Lilas and her fellow guitarist Shery starts to fracture. The future of her band, her country, and her dreams now all at stake, Lilas faces a crossroad. She must decide what kind of leader she will be, not only for her band, but also as a young woman struggling to define herself in Lebanon, a country as complex as each of the Sirens themselves.

The Emmy award winning, Moroccan American Baghdadi (photo below) says that in 2018, while searching for Middle Eastern/North African representation, she discovered Slave to Sirens’ music:

“I was going through a terrible time. My Dad in Morocco had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and the thought of losing him sent me into an existential crisis. I needed more than ever to connect to my Arab identity, and seek out stories of hopes and dreams in the MENA [Middle Eastern/North African] region. And that’s when I met Lilas. I immediately recognized a younger version of myself in her, a recognition that was somehow so powerful. Lilas showed up in my life at a time when it mattered most.”

Not long after the two women became friends via Skype, and Baghdadi was introduced to the rest of her band.

“I’ve always been drawn to musicians, in fact everyone I have ever loved has been a musician, but there was something extra special about the electricity between these bandmates. I saw an opportunity to make exactly the kind of film I wish I had seen growing up. A film where Arab women could be the stars of their own story, and not the victims in someone else’s. Where Arab women could scream, curse, thrash, and talk openly about sexuality without being sexualized. I knew that the best way to challenge Western expectations of what it’s like to be a young woman growing up in the Middle East today was simply to feature her like everyone else: human, full of dreams, and fueled by desire.”

Her third feature documentary, Sirens premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest.

Producers Rudolph and Lyonne (below) launched Animal Pictures in 2018 with veteran independent producer Danielle Renfrew Behrens. Animal’s projects include the Apple TV+ series Loot, created by Emmy winners Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard which was recently renewed for a second season, Rian Johnson’s mystery Poker Face, currently in production for Peacock and Lyonne’s second season of Russian Doll on Netflix. Amazon just gave a 2 season order to their adult animated series The Hospital created by Cirocco Dunlap and Animal’s first feature CRUSH launched on Hulu in April.

Watch the trailer to Sirens below.