Horror and fantasy beside the seaside
From October 7 to 16 the Sitges film festival returns for its 49th edition with its usual strong line-up of more than 200 movies from new and established directors from all over the world
With the summer music festival season now a distant memory, the celebration of culture does not stop in Catalonia, as the autumn festival season ramps up. While Temporada Alta brings audiences the best the stage has to offer, between October 7 and 16 the seaside town of Sitges is the site for the annual International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia. Since it began in 1968, the movie festival devoted to fantasy and horror films has grown to become the world's foremost festival of its kind, attracting large crowds and the cream of Hollywood.
This year, the 49th edition, once again will offer audiences a broad range of new fantasy and horror films, with more than 200 titles. One example is the The Limehouse Golem, by Juan Carlos Medina, a British production based on a book by Peter Ackroyd set in Victorian England. Starring Spanish actor, María Valverde, The Limehouse Golem will bring this year's festival to a close. Meanwhile raising the curtain on the festival will be the European premiere of Inside, directed by Miguel Ángel Vivas and starring Rachel Nichols and Laura Harring. One of the most highly anticipated films at the festival will be Blair Witch, in which director Adam Wingard takes audiences back 17 years in a sequel to The Blair Witch Project, which took the world of cinema by storm in 1999.
As always, the Sitges festival will have different sections focusing on certain aspects of the fantasy genre. The Noves Visions section, for example, which highlights “new formal, conceptual and narrative channels”, has a strong lineup of films programmed, such as La región salvaje from Mexican director Amat Escalante, who recently won the best director award in the Venice film festival. The Panorama section, which features more independent productions, will boast work by a number of top directors, such as Don Coscarelli, Bryan Bertino and Marcus Dunstan. The Panorama section kicks off with Dans la forêt (Into the Forest), the return of director Guilles Marchand.
Meanwhile, the Midnight X-Treme section has the festival's most transgressive and hardcore films, such as the premiere of It Stains the Sands Red, by the Vicious Brothers, or the first Tamil zombie film, Miruthan by Shakti Soundar Rajan. The festival's Òrbita section, devoted to thrillers, has debuts by the directors Corey Asraf and John Swab, with Let Me Make You a Martyr, and the anticipated return of Korean director Kim Jee-won, with The Age of Shadows.
Prizes
Yet the festival's big prizes will be awarded in the main section, the Official Fantàstic Selection, which will bring together some of the biggest films of the year. Terrence Malick's first documentary, Voyage of Time, will be shown in a special screening as will the latest film from Werner Herzog, Salt and Fire. In programming the lineup for its official selection, the Sitges festival roams far and wide, with premieres from all over the world. From France, for example, comes Julia Ducournau's Grave, as well as the world premiere of the epic sci-fi story Arès by Jean-Patrick Benes. Meanwhile, director Matt Johnson returns with another sci-fi film, Operation Avalanche, while video games and sci-fi meet in the Spanish premiere of the Russian action film, Hardcore Henry by Ilya Naishuller. Then there is the Belgian production Mon ange by director Harry Cleven, and the latest offering from US director Kevin Smith, the comedy Yoga Hosers, with Johnny Depp.
Sitges 2016 is also keen to feature local talent and this year includes Catalan films, such as Proyecto Lázaro by Mateo Gil, Pet by Carles Torrens, as well as the aforementioned Inside, which opens the festival.