Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia

Born in 1968 as the 1st International Week of Fantasy and Horror Movies, today the Festival is an essential rendezvous for movie lovers and audiences eager to come into contact with new tendencies and technologies applied to horror and fantastic film cinema.

SITGES – International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia is the number one fantasy film festival in the world, both for its seniority and for its media and industrial impact. With a solid track record, the event offers in the fantastic cinema from around the world a stimulating framework for meetings, exhibitions, presentations, and projections.

Sitges is proud to have received to receive visits from top-level movie stars, directors and producers like David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, George A. Romero, Cameron Diaz, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, Peter Weir, Viggo Mortensen, Terry Gilliam, John Landis, Joe Dante, Zoë Bello, Dino de Laurentii, Takashi Miike, Wim Wenders, Tony Curtis, David Cronenberg, Álex de la Iglesia, Vanessa Redgrave, Darren Aronofsky, John Woo, Park Chan-Wook, Johnnie To, Paul Naschy, Ray Liotta, Jon Voight, Sam Raimi, Robert Englund, Mira Sorvino, Santiago Segura, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, Guillermo del Toro, Kim Ki Duk, William Friedkin, Susan Sarandon, among others from the long list of people who, edition after edition, constitutes a real claim for the audience and the media.

Every year, the town of Sitges prepares for its annual meeting with fans of fantastic, the industry and the press. The Festival combines the best genre cinema of the moment with a look at films that have traced the history of fantastic, as well as adding tributes to film personalities with a special connection to fantastic.

A history through the poster

Throughout its history, the Festival's posters have been inspired by the icons of world fantastic cinema. In 2021 it was the werewolf's turn, celebrating the 80th anniversary of the release of The Wolf Man (George Waggner, 1941). 2020 marks the centenary of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920). In 2019, Sitges breathed in desert dust and rusty iron celebrating the 40th anniversary of the premiere of Mad Max, by George Miller (1979). In 2018, one of the great symbols of the history of cinema was the star of the poster for the 51st edition of the Sitges Film Festival: the mysterious monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick's science fiction classic that celebrated 50 years (1968). In 2017, and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Festival, the poster made reference to Dracula, the fantastic myth par excellence, taking advantage of the 25th anniversary of the premiere of a film as definitive as Bram Stoker's Dracula, by Francis Ford Coppola (1992). And we could go on listing examples until we reach the first of the posters (1968), the first image of what was the International Week of Fantastic and Horror Film, and which was, nothing more and nothing less, than the figure of Charles Chaplin.

The Sitges Film Festival is also a festival qualified by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood for the Oscar® Awards; so that the winning short films in the fiction and animation sections are automatically pre-selected.