Óliver Laxe is a Spanish-born French filmmaker who has garnered international acclaim for his poetic and visually striking cinematic works. Born in Paris in 1982 to Galician émigré parents, Laxe spent his childhood shuttling between the French capital and his family’s ancestral home in the rural Galicia region of northwestern Spain.After studying audiovisual communication at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Laxe relocated to London, where he directed his first short film, Y las chimeneas decidieron escapar in 2006. His feature film debut, You All Are Captains, premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize in the Directors’ Fortnight section. Laxe’s subsequent films, Mimosas (2016) and Fire Will Come (2019), cemented his reputation as a singular cinematic voice, blending elements of documentary and fiction to craft poetic meditations on themes of spirituality, nature, and the human condition. These movies respectively won the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at Cannes and the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize. In 2025, Laxe returned to the Cannes Film Festival in the main competition with his latest work, Sirât, a mystical and politically charged drama that further solidified his status as a visionary filmmaker unafraid to tackle complex, thought-provoking subject matter. There, he won the Joint Jury Prize, alongside Mascha Schilinski.
