Shower Of Awards at Sitges2024 on Zombie Walk Day

A total of three award winners took to the stage today at the Auditori Melià to receive their recognitions. Nick Frost and Ovidio G. Assonitis received the Time Machine Award, while Fabio Testi received the Nosferatu Award. As for screenings, today we can highlight Exhuma, Apocalypse Z, Get Away and MadS. And as if that weren't enough, the undead invaded the streets of Sitges in a new edition of the Zombie Walk.

The first weekend of Sitges2024 has arrived and not only do the activities not stop, but they intensify. Nick Frost was the first of the award winners to walk the red carpet at the Auditori Melià today, where he was presented with the Time Machine Award before the screening of Get Away, one of the three movies we will be able to enjoy him in this year at the Festival. The British actor also stopped by the press conference room this morning, along with director Steffen Haars, where he talked about his zany career and the multitude of projects he's bringing to the Festival this year. “My favorite cornetto flavor is mint because while I'm eating it I feel like I'm brushing my teeth,” Frost said in welcoming us. “My writing process consists of watching horror movies non-stop and writing at least ten pages every day, even if they suck,” the actor explained about his work as a screenwriter on Get Away. On the other hand, regarding his canine role in Timestalker he explains that “it was great to play a dog; I'm a method actor, all the barking was mine”. The actor confessed that he is looking forward to working with Edgar Wright again, but says he's “waiting for that perfect idea to come to us”.  

Afterwards, the great Italian actor Fabio Testi walked the red carpet and received the Nosferatu Award before the screening of Exhuma in front of a packed Auditori. With this award, we pay tribute to a long career in Italian genre cinema since the end of the sixties, ranging from westerns to poliziesco and giallo. Finally, the day ended in style with another of the great figures in Italian genre films: the Italian-Egyptian producer, director, screenwriter and executive Ovidio G. Assonitis received the Time Machine Award for his multifaceted career and his fundamental role in the development of Italian cinema since the 1960s. 

Earlier in the afternoon, the Auditori enjoyed the premiere of Invisible, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Eloy Moreno, brought to us by director Paco Caballero and Disney+. After the screening, director and cast appeared at a press conference to discuss this serial story about a 12-year-old boy who suffers a mysterious accident that nobody knows anything about. The filmmaker said that finding the right tone was the most complicated part: “We didn't want to be overly melodramatic or fall into the trap of social drama, we wanted to portray the problem of bullying from a fantastic but realistic point of view”. The author of the novel speaks emotionally about the adaptation, defending that “I cried watching the series the same way I cried reading the book for the first time, which means that things have been done right”. Meanwhile, actor Miki Esparbé spoke about his friendship and professional relationship with the director: “Congratulations Paco, this is your Sistine Chapel”.

At mid-afternoon we enjoyed, in this case at the Prado, the world premiere of the latest work by one of the leading Catalan directors of the moment: Marc Recha. In Centaures de la nit, the filmmaker offers us a radical proposal -mainly played by non-professional blind actors- with a suggestive premise: a man hunting for relics hidden by Slovenian monks is reunited with the love of his life. This morning, the director and actors Montse Germán and Lluís Soler attended a press conference. Recha spoke to us about the difficulty of showing what those who cannot see can see: “That's why the camera searches so insistently for low angle shots, always invoking the imagination and the divine. Savage capitalism is making us lose the ability to imagine, we need images that are suggestive”. Regarding the chosen location, the filmmaker argued that “the Monestir de Poblet (Poblet Monastery) is the epicenter of the film, without the involvement of its community of monks it would have been impossible for Centaures de la nit to exist”. “I learned that blind people see everything,” said Lluís Soler. 

After the bloody party that the Auditori experienced last night, we were able to listen to Damien Leone and a large part of the Terrifier 3 family in the press conference room today. David Howard Thornton, the actor who brings the sadistic clown to life, spoke of the inspiration that physical comedy and silent films - from Charles Chaplin to Mr. Bean - had on his performance. “In fact, one of the biggest inspirations for Art the Clown is the role that Stefán Karl Stefánsson played in the children's series Lazy Town; when I was offered the character, the first thing I did was call him.” The director expressed his excitement about the excellent reception the trilogy has received over the last few years: “Art the Clown has even made it to Call of Duty, it's fantastic”. As for the lines he would never cross in Terrifier, Leone argued that “everything can be shown in a movie, but how it's shown to viewers is very important, that's where I draw the line”. Actress Samantha Scaffidi assures that, after participating in the three films, nothing can surprise her anymore: “I read all these atrocities in the script and it's like reading a wall, I'm completely desensitized”.

Another great world premiere we had today was Apocalipsis Z: The Beginning of the End, an adaptation of the series of novels by Manel Loureiro directed by Carles Torrens and produced by Prime Video. Director, author and a large part of the team - so many that they couldn't even all fit at the press conference table - had a very busy day, as they were the stars of the kick-off of the Zombie Walk in the afternoon and appeared before the media in the morning. Regarding the process of adapting the novel, Loureiro said that it was a very pleasant experience. “In the transition from the pages to the screen there must always be changes, but with material that is so well-loved by such a passionate community it can be complicated.” Actor Francisco Ortiz confessed to having avoided any kind of reference to the zombie genre during the preparation of the film, because “I wanted to preserve the humanist spirit of the character without impregnating him with too many horror movie tics”. Pedrito, the cat starring in the film, was the star of the press conference. “He is a diva, the camera loves him, in Spain he gets all the roles”, says Carles Torrens.  

As for screenings, today was a day full of Official Selection films at the Auditori. Before noon, one of the most surprising films of this year's Festival was screened: MadS by David Moreau. A single sequence shot and a hallucinatory journey that becomes surreal are the ingredients of this horror film that stands out thanks to a young cast headed by actresses Lucile Guillaume and Laurie Pavy. In the afternoon, we experienced the screening of one of the big sensations in Asian horror movies this year, the Korean film Exhuma, arriving in Sitges after being seen by more than 12 million spectators at its screening in South Korean movie theaters. Choi Min-sik stars in this supernatural horror movie that delighted an Auditori that was packed to the rafters.

Outside the movie theaters, the day was dominated by the 14th edition of the Zombie Walk, the most terrifying undead walk in the world. The invasion began at 8:30 pm at the MEETING, with the cast of Apocalypsis Z: The Beginning of the End as the star of its kick-off. In addition to the parade itself, zombies were the protagonists of more activities including makeup workshops, a special screening of short films at MEETING and, of course, the traditional late-night zombie marathon, which this year takes place at the Prado, where the Festival's nighttime audience could enjoy Tengo que acabar el puto TFM by Estíbaliz Burgaleta and Andrea Casaseca, Los comensales by MJ Fuentes Mateos, Operation Undead by Kongkiat Komesiri, El tema del verano by Pablo Stoll Ward and Die Alone by Lowell Dean.