'Piggy' Wins the Auditori's Applause on the Day of the ZombieWalk's Return
This Evening Edgar Wright will be Receiving the Second Time Machine Award at this Year's Edition Presenting the Contemporary Classic Shaun of the Dead
The Sitges Film Festival's first Saturday connected thousands of moviegoers to the fantastic metaverse. With the pandemic now in its death throes, it was finally possible to celebrate the classic ZombieWalk, a multitudinous event that the Festival's audience is especially fond of thanks to so many years of fun amidst kilos of makeup and the living dead's characteristic tattered rags. But that's not the only thing that fueled the day today: an infinite number of screenings and activities took place on a particularly event-packed day.
In the wake of his long track record in filmmaking ever since Spaced, the series that put him on the map, Edgar Wright will be receiving the Time Machine Award today for the virtuosity he has displayed over the course of his career. The director will kick off the first late-night thematic marathon to be held at the Hotel Meliá after the two-year pandemic, which begins precisely with Shaun of the Dead, the first international hit of his career. At the press conference, in addition to talking about films like Baby Driver, Last Night in Soho and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, he expressed his position regarding today's increasingly franchised Hollywood moviemaking, a debate in full force: "I don't have anything against movie franchises, but the important thing is for people to also have the opportunity to make original films. I don't understand Hollywood's obsession with constantly repeating the same thing. In 1977, Star Wars was an original script, and in 1979, Alien was too."
Carlota Pereda, accompanied by the entire team from Piggy, also attended a press conference with media outlets. During her appearance, Pereda emphasized the importance of the character over the story: "What we wanted to do was to make something intimate, something that would work for the character. It had to be in a village because the situation she suffers is much more claustrophobic, in villages there's no escape from bullying. There was no strategy in the film, we just followed the character and let the character tell the story. My approach was to say: who is she and what would this girl do?" Towards the evening, after walking the red carpet with Carmen Machi, Laura Galán and Richard Holmes, the premiere of the long-awaited film took place and was attended by the Minister of Culture and Sport of the Spanish government, Miquel Iceta.
Right before the screening, the 55th Nosferatu Award was presented to Brigitte Lahaie, radio presenter and erotic actress during the 70s and 80s. Alongside her career in pornographic movies, Lahaie participated in genre films including Jess Franco's Faceless, which was screened today, and Jean Rollin's The Grapes of Death and Fascination.
While the Auditori was abuzz with Pereda's film, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius moved from the MEETING area, from where he kicked off the ZombieWalk, to the Auditori Meliá to present Final Cut, but not before walking the red carpet with award-winning French-Argentine actress Bérénice Bejo. The film is a reimagining of the highly acclaimed Japanese film One Cut of the Dead, where a zombie movie shoot is interrupted by an avalanche of the real undead.
The day in the press room concluded with the presence of Neil Marshall, who in the early hours of yesterday morning received his Time Machine Award before the screening of The Lair, his latest film. In front of the microphones, the English director commented on his prolific collaboration with Charlotte Kirk: "We have a great creative relationship, we both bring something different to the table. In the last four years we've written three scripts together. Being an actress as well as a producer and screenwriter, she provides a different vision. I think we work together very well".
In the middle of the afternoon, the premiere of the first two episodes of ¡García!, the new series by Sara Antuña and Carlos de Pando for HBO Max, took place. The two showrunners visited the Catalan coast along with a large number of the project's team, including director Eugenio Mira and actors Veki Velilla, Marina Gatell and Francisco Reyes, among others. ¡García! follows the story of the namesake character, a cryogenically frozen superhero from the 1950s who, in present day Spain, will be key to saving democracy from imminent danger.
Among the industry events, the two encounters that took place today are especially noteworthy: the first, with Robert Englund, where he reviewed his entire career, including his iconic role as Freddy Kruger; and the second, with the aforementioned Neil Marshall. In addition, Sitges Tabook's inaugurated its agenda this year with a round table discussion about Red Queen, an Amazon Prime Video series based on the novel by Juan Gómez Jurado. The participants were showrunner Amaya Murazabal, screenwriter Salvador Perpiñá and Gómez Jurado himself. There was also a round table discussion with the people behind Awareness, where they explained its development process, as well as the Film Preservation and Restoration meeting, where William Lustig, David Gregory, Pete Tombs and Phillip Escott discussed the process of restoring a film.
Meanwhile, in addition to the expected return of the multitudinous ZombieWalk, the parallel activities were highlighted by the recording of two of Radio Primavera Sound's most listened to radio programs: Tardeo and Pop y muerte, which provided the musical note for today's agenda. As for the little ones, they were able to attend the first screenings of Kids Cinema, the film lineup that brings together children every year at the Mercat Vell.