Cold Open · Essay · feb 19, 2026

The DJ Who Turned Sirãt Into a Rave Experience w/ Kangding Ray

Sirat — Óliver Laxe's Cannes entry — follows a father searching for his daughter through a world dissolving into rave and borderland and bass. DJ and film composer Kangding Ray joins Hugo Emmerzael to discuss the specific challenge of carrying rave culture's ethos into cinema without sanitising it, and what it means to build a film around sound as primary sensation. A conversation between two artists who work in immersion — one in clubs, one on screen — about what happens when the dancefloor becomes the cinema.

By Hugo Emmerzael

Film Journalist · Celebrating Cinema

Hugo Emmerzael speaks with DJ and composer Kangding Ray about Sirat — a punishing, bass-driven plunge into the borderlands of rave culture. The film follows a father searching for his missing daughter amid sound systems and stateless horizons, unfolding less as conventional narrative than as sensory immersion.

Kangding Ray reflects on his journey from underground club DJ to film composer, and on what it means to carry the ethos of the dancefloor into cinema. Rather than sanitising rave culture, he was determined to preserve its rawness.

Together they explore how to craft a score that doesn’t simply underscore the image but unsettles it They also discuss shaping the sonic textures of the landscape itself and why rave on film has so often felt like a betrayal of the culture it tries to depict.

Get tickets to ⁠Sirāt⁠ @ LAB111

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