Horror Girls: Saturday and Sunday

2nd Meeting of European Female Filmmakers Specializing in the Fantastic Genre

On the second day, the sessions began with the round table discussion “Bloody Obsession: Writing about Women and Horror”, moderated by Mònica García i Massagué, General Director of the Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia Foundation, and with the participation of British director, actress and screenwriter Alice Lowe, and researchers Heidi Honeycutt and Victoria McCollum. One of the central themes of the debate was the difference between horror made by women and men. In general, they concurred that female filmmakers have a different sensibility and that they often deal with experientially female themes, such as motherhood. Lowe commented that it's impossible to escape the label “woman director” and that she loves writing from her perspective, but at the same time she wondered when the time would come for women to deal with universal themes on a regular basis. Timestalker, her latest film premiering at the Festival, portrays what a woman is like from the inside, showing her fantasies and ideas. Honeycutt explained that with her work, she tries to recover the history of female filmmakers, a part that has always been overlooked. She also asserted that today, money is synonymous with freedom. In this regard, Lowe said that when money comes from private foundations there's a lot of pressure, and that it's difficult to express oneself freely. McCollum confirmed that women have to work twice as hard as men to get halfway there, to which Lowe added that the difference between the conviction of a filmmaker as a man and as a woman is always very noticeable, and that, because she is a woman, she is used to being approached differently by producers.  

The second round table, "MaestrAs: Encounter with Heather Langenkamp", also moderated by Mònica Garcia i Massagué, featured the iconic actress from A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984). Langenkamp began the encounter by going back in time and sharing memories of her beginnings with the audience. When she filmed with Craven for the first time, she was only twenty years old, and she had almost never seen horror movies. Many people recommended her not to make the film, but since she needed the money to pay her rent, she accepted and discovered that Wes Craven was a kind and gentle man, with whom they would end up becoming good friends. “Wes was a teacher for me”, the actress confirmed. She also confessed that she doesn't like to see people suffering on the screen and that what interests her most about genre films is the technical aspect, especially the makeup and special effects. In fact, her husband, David LeRoy Anderson, is a makeup artist, and he was the person she was able to work with after playing the role of Nancy in Craven's movie, since she had a hard time finding work. He was in charge of the artistic aspects, and she was in charge of the executive ones, and although they still work together today, she insisted that her dream had always been to be an actress. She also spoke about her career as a director: in 2008 she released Prank, along with Ellie Cornell and Danielle Harris (actresses from the Halloween franchise); in 2011 she produced the documentary I Am Nancy with the intention of bringing value to the character, since many fans only remember Freddy; and, finally, in 2020 she shot a short film about death entitled Washed Away. She is currently still looking for new opportunities to direct projects. During the pandemic, she commented, she received a call for a series by Mike Flanagan. Once she got the part, she explained that she traveled to Canada and there she met the director, with whom she truly enjoyed working.

The last talk of the day, and surely one of the most anticipated, was "MaestrAs: Coralie Fargeat Meets Carlota Pereda". The director of The Substance explained that growing up watching horror films meant a lot to her: a gateway to adventure. She affirmed that the cinema she likes is very visual and resounding, where images sometimes speak louder than words. Her films, which show a society dominated by the male gaze, feature female protagonists affected by it: they only exist if someone desires them, and the fear of imperfection becomes a nightmare. She pointed out that the end of The Substance is the liberation from all the standards of beauty that we as women are subjected to. Comedy is also relevant for the French director, as she says it's also a powerful way of explaining something profound, as is the case with genre. She confessed that she doesn't feel particularly connected to European cinema, since her desire has always been to tell more universal stories. Her relationship with the Sitges Film Festival, where she won two awards with her debut feature, is sustained by her experience shared with the audience, something the filmmaker values enormously.

"Behind and in Front of the Camera: Actress - Directors" was the last of the Horror Girls sessions round table discussions, a conversation between Kate Siegel and Mònica Garcia i Massagué about what it means to be an actress but also to write and direct. Siegel shared how the characters she has played during her career have affected her with the audience, stressing that the most difficult was probably that of Erin Greene in Midnight Mass (Mike Flanagan). As an actress, she often works with Mike Flanagan, her sentimental partner: in fact, they are known as the “power couple” of horror. What she likes most about him, she commented, is his humanity and the fact that he doesn't have an overwhelming ego. The fact that he knows her so well allows her to do her job better, since Flanagan knows perfectly well when Siegel is lying or telling the truth. Right now, she confirms, she's more interested in directing, not only because she's fascinated by this more creative side, but also because while directing she's freer from the aesthetic pressure that female performers are condemned to, always aware of their age, wrinkles or kilos. She believes that filmmaking is very complicated, regardless of the genre and confesses that she is already working on her first film with Shudder.