Julia Ducournau and Carmen Maura, Scream Queens

The big day has finally arrived. The 58th edition of SITGES – International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, the global genre film showcase, kicks off with the participation of two immense female creators. Director Julia Ducournau opened the film competition with the explosive Alpha, and Carmen Maura starred in one of the first films in the Official In Competition Selection: Vieja loca, directed by Martín Mauregui. 

The annual rendezvous with the very best fantastic and horror genre movies is now a reality, but before unleashing its full force, the Sitges Festival opened its doors wide to school-age film lovers. Hundreds of elementary school children were spellbound by the images of Arco, a film that won the top award at the Annecy Festival and is being screened in this year's Anima't and Sitges Collection sections. Directed by French illustrator Ugo Bienvenu and co-produced by Natalie Portman, this radiant debut feature unveiled its full-color animation at the Meliá Auditorium to tell a futuristic tale of friendship and hope in a world affected by climate change. 

Third Time that a Female Director Opens Sitges 

Julia Ducournau, one of the most radical voices in contemporary filmmaking and winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes for her powerful film Titane, kicked off the Festival with Alpha, her third horror film, which captivated the audience at the Meliá Auditorium during a jam-packed opening screening. 

Influenced by David Cronenberg's imaginary revolving around the new flesh and mutations of the diseased body, Ducournau left no one indifferent. The bodily changes of a young woman, played by newcomer Mélissa Boros, who is suffering as a result of a tattoo on her arm, brought issues to the table including the stigma of prejudice when faced with illness and fear as a tool for social control. 

By the way, this is the third time that a female director has opened the film competition, following Mary Harron in 2000 with American Psycho and Ana Lily Amirpour in 2021 with Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon. It is also the third time that Ducournau has presented a film in Sitges following the award-winning Raw and Titane; two films with a carnal forcefulness regarding femininity as a battlefield that expand the bloody, furious, and visceral universe of this essential auteur. 

“Encounter Rendezvous with Julia Ducournau” 

Fortunately for some, before the start of the opening gala, the most curious viewers were able to enjoy the talk given by Julia Ducournau this afternoon, which was highly successful in terms of attendance. New this year, both fans and journalists shared the venue -in a hybrid event combining the traditional press conference with an encounter with international artists- to discover up close and personal her testimony as a director and screenwriter. 

Likewise, before inaugurating the gala in person, the filmmaker gave a stimulating talk at the Sitges Meliá Hotel, which was a great success with a passionate audience halfway between fans and journalists. Ducournau said that Alpha is not a horror film, but a family drama about blood diseases as a stigma of social control and class division. In addition, there are several references to the work of Edgar Allan Poe in this tragic tale that addresses such universal issues as the fear of death and the cruelty of oblivion. 

During the talk, which is part of the MaestrAs series dedicated to leading female creators in fantastic and horror genre filmmaking, Ducournau highlighted some of the unique features of Alpha. She confirmed that “time is not conceived linearly,” but rather as a sequence “full of holes” caused by the power of memories. “Like a Bermuda Triangle in perpetual motion between past, present, and future.”  

Ducournau also confessed her attraction to the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Works such as The Masque of the Red Death and A Dream Within a Dream are reflected in her stimulating film. “There's something about Poe's melancholy and his approach to the fear of rejection in a class-divided society that is still relevant today.” The Parisian auteur then showed her fortitude when asked about her limitations, insisting that Alpha is not a horror film. “I wrote it as a drama.” 

Great Tributes to Great Women 

Of course, the high point of the day arrived with the opening gala. The cast of the cult film Re-Animator walked the red carpet at the Meliá Hotel, including composer Richard Band, and legendary actress Barbara Crampton; the Jury of the Official Fantàstic Selection, made up of producer and director Peter Chan, special effects supervisor Laura Pedro, director of the Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences Hernán Findling, Canadian director Jovanka Vuckovic, and cult auteur Mary Harron, who received the WomanInFan Award during the gala amidst a sea of applause. Her aura as an iconic creator is mainly due to the captivating American Psycho, the famous adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's best-selling novel of the same name, which premiered at Sitges 2000. Harron created a turning point with this caustic psychological thriller about yuppie decadence and the miseries of corporate social climbing. Her portrayal of the disturbing Patrick Bateman, played by a scruffy Christian Bale, has left an indelible mark on film history. 

It was in Sitges in 2000 when Mary Harron left us speechless with her savage adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the same name about the decadence of wealthy Wall Street yuppies. Today, the Canadian director returned to the Festival that has watched her grow to pick up the WomanInFan Award in a packed Auditorium. 

Harron applauded the growing presence of female creators in the film industry and recalled that, the year American Psycho competed in the Official Selection, she was unable to come to present it because her second son had just been born. However, this doesn't change the fact that Sitges is her go-to Festival. As she rightly pointed out, “here there are no boundaries between humor, horror, and fantasy.” 

For their part, the gala was hosted by the Festival’s Artistic Director, Ángel Sala, and the Director of the Foundation, Mònica Garcia i Massagué, with contributions from Melina Matthews and Dafnis Balduz. Likewise, the event was attended by distinguished institutional guests: Mr. Ernest Urtasun Domènech, Minister of Culture; Ms. Aurora Carbonell i Abella, Mayor of Sitges; Ms. Sònia Hernández Almodóvar, Minister of Culture of the Government of Catalonia; Ms. Raquel Sans, First Vice President of the Parliament of Catalonia; Mr. Ignasi Camós, Director General of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA); Mr. Albert Oliver-Rodés, Councillor for Culture, Social Rights and Education of Sitges Town Council; Ms. Judit Sans, Manager of the ICEC; and Mr. Francisco Vargas, Director of the Audiovisual Area of the ICEC. 

Carmen Maura, Grand Honorary Award Winner 

When night fell, the iconic Carmen Maura was honored amid ovations and applause at an event held to celebrate her prolific career as an actress. An indiscernible muse of contemporary film and an exceptional talent in Spanish comedy and drama, the star of such unmissable, high-energy films as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Oh, Carmela! picked up the Grand Honorary Award. “... ... ...,” confessed the iconic actress from The Community to an ecstatic audience. 

Maura also surprised Sitges with her chilling performance in Vieja loca. The film, produced by J.A. Bayona, is the solo feature debut of Argentine director Martín Mauregui, who locked Sitges' audience inside a claustrophobic house reminiscent of Misery. Maura plays a menacing mother-in-law who traps her son-in-law, a distressed Daniel Hendler, in a macabre web of sadistic games. 

Vieja loca, incidentally, was screened following a stimulating short thriller. Señuelo, directed by young filmmaker Martha Ayerbe, was the perfect introduction. This project, developed under the mentorship of Bayona himself, represents the emerging talent that the Sitges Foundation and CUPRA promote through The Dream Makers project. In this way, CUPRA reinforces its commitment to cinema and artistic innovation by supporting the new generation of Spanish filmmakers. 

At the same time, the highly evocative Shelby Oaks also stood out in the Official Selection. Its creator, critic and YouTuber Chris Stuckmann, also makes his feature film directorial debut with this story of presences in an abandoned town, rooted in the culture of paranormal videos in circulation on the Internet. The film also features veteran American actor Keith David in its cast. 

Aliens and Samurai Swords in the First Screenings at the Escorxador and the Tramuntana 

Meanwhile, from the heart of Austin (Texas), a science fiction production arrived as the first screening at the Escorxador theater. Nominated for Best Feature Film in the Noves Visions section, The Infinite Husk is the feature film debut of Aaron Silverstein, a director and composer influenced by gospel music and American film noir. In fact, his debut feature has a soundtrack that he created himself. Silverstein tells the spy story of an alien entity that visits Earth to investigate one of its own. Next, the Escorxador would screen another exciting feature film debut that is also nominated in Noves Visions. We're referring to Buffet Infinity, a work by comedian Simon Glassman. This original Canadian horror comedy - which received a Special Jury Mention at the most recent Fantasia Festival - mesmerized audiences with its depiction of a rivalry between two restaurants in the fictional town of Westridge, narrated through hundreds of hours of television commercials created by the director himself. Suddenly, we found ourselves immersed in the point of view of a television viewer with access to the occult. 

And from the most sinister fantastic genre, we enter western territory. If there was one thing that caught our attention in Slow West, John Maclean's debut feature screened at Sitges 2015, it was his approach to the frontier mythology, which differed from the usual western conventions, halfway between contemplation and weirdness. Now, Maclean is back in Sitges with another pure genre exercise. Tornado, his second feature film, follows in the tradition of bloody revenge narratives to tell us the story of a young Japanese woman (Kôki) and her father (Takehiro Hira), the traveling owner of a samurai puppet show in 1790s Britain, who cross paths with a gang of ruthless criminals led by Sugarman, a fearsome killer played by the brilliant Tim Roth.