The Festival's image paid tribute to the silver anniversary of Blade Runner, and replicant Rutger Hauer visited Sitges to present the final cut of Ridley Scott's masterpiece and accept his Time Machine Award. George A. Romero also attended the Festival and received its Grand Honorary Award. The Festival opened with The Orphanage, heralding an excellent crop of homegrown fantastic productions: Timecrimes, King of the Hill, and The Appeared. Their directors would become household names at the film competition. An animated gem, Nocturna, was also screened this year. With actresses Zoë Bell (also a member of the jury) and Sidney Tamiia Poitier as ambassadors, Sitges hosted a one-off screening of Grindhouse as originally conceived by Robert Rodríguez and Quentin Tarantino: a double bill featuring the shorter versions of Planet Terror and Death Proof, accompanied by mock trailers directed by Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, Edgar Wright, and Rodríguez himself.
