Sitges FanLab Reveals its WomanInFan, FanPitch and Coming Soon Selections
The kickoff of the 57th edition of the SITGES - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia is drawing ever closer and with it comes good news from the Industry Department, which once again this year is committed to promoting the future of genre filmmaking with initiatives like those found within the framework of WomanInFan, Sitges FanPitch or Sitges Coming Soon.
First, we can now announce the winners of the two WomanInFan calls for entries. This year, the GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FAN: III WOMANINFAN – SITGES FANLAB TEASER-SHORT FILM CREATION COMPETITION will opt for a Spanish fantastic film, with the selection of Marina Badia's project Cordero de mí. The director from Zaragoza is a huge fan of Twin Peaks (something evident in her project), the Spice Girls and of course, making videos. She has won awards for her short films both in Europe and the United States, including Lars Von Trier's selection of Fate, one of her first shorts .
Cordero de mí is a film that combines elements of psychological thriller with touches of fantasy. In it, Juan, a lonely shepherd from a small town in Lleida, lives a quiet existence until he meets Elisa, a baker who has just arrived in town. What begins as an innocent friendship will gradually become more complicated as we get to know Juan's past.
With this competition, the Sitges Film Festival's initiative for the visibility and incorporation of female creators in fantastic filmmaking proposes the creation of a piece for its circulation in the audiovisual market. With this, WomanInFan reinforces its field of action to include film production to support the work of female filmmakers in the fantastic genre industry. The winners of the two previous editions have been Estíbaliz Burgaleta for her project El Chino and Samantha Aldana for her Little Lying Wild project.
Meanwhile, the II WOMANINFAN – SITGES FANLAB FANTASTIC RESIDENCE announces the names of its three winners: Day García, Arianne Hinz and Marina Badia, who repeats selection here with her exciting project Cordero de mí. The first of them, a Cuban director (seventh Cuban woman to direct a feature length film) based in Spain, brings us La Pausa, a project where we follow Sole Cruz, a 13-year-old girl who lives in Madrid in a context in which time has stopped, so she lives in a perpetual adolescence. La Pausa moves between satire and futuristic fiction, with Sole as a cicerone in a fantastic universe where immutability generates both humor and conflict. Meanwhile, Dutch director Arianne Hinz arrives with the project Marionettes, a psychological drama that plays with the conventions of fantastic genre. In it, Lola, an 11-year-old girl, becomes part of a play in which a group of girls perform as puppets. Reality and fiction will gradually merge and Lola's desire to belong to the group ends up having fatal consequences that she never expected.
To the three selected, we must add the names of the nine finalists, who will receive as a prize a free accreditation for this year's edition of the Festival. These have been Ainhoa Menéndez, Aida Cordero and Marina Wagner from Spain, Riko Murakami from Japan, Olivia Cordell and Emily Greenwood from Great Britain, Louisa Weichmann from Germany, Sapna Bhavnani from India and Yvonne Kerekgyarto from Hungary.
This Festival initiative, now in its second year, proposes a new platform for female fantastic genre creators. It’s a training proposal using the residency format, which will take place during the 57th Sitges - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia.
A record breaking line-up for Sitges FanPitch
SITGES FANPITCH 2024 announces a record-breaking line-up for this edition, which includes 16 feature films and 5 series. This initiative continues with its firm commitment to the development of both Spanish and international fantastic films, so we can find projects from every continent: 40% of the total number of selected productions come from Spain, 26% from South America, 13% from North America, 17% from Europe, 3% from Asia and, finally, 1% from Oceania.
When it comes to the feature length format, we will have Joseph Diaz's Triangle (Spain), a story about dealing with loss and a man's unhealthy obsession with triangular shapes; Renata Pinheiro's Carrion (Brazil), a bloody tale of female revenge, set in the context of a Brazilian western and infused with elements of fantasy and horror; Dog Legs (Patas de perro) (Chile) by Matías Rojas, about a lonely cab driver who adopts a boy born with dog legs; Salvaje (Spain) by Koldo Serra, a stylized action-adventure film set in 1871 Spain starring Trinidad “Salvaje” Cortés; Rocko Zevenbergen's Flapjax (United States), the story of a fast food establishment manager who unknowingly sets in motion the plans of an alien race; Laura Muñoz's' The Weak (Spain), a suspenseful and intriguing film full of twists and turns where a 12-year-old boy fakes his own disappearance, and Elisabeth Crummett's Delia's Ghost (New Zealand), which tells the story of the ghost of a young punk criminal who finds his purpose in life when he meets a girl who is able to see and hear him.
The special mentions went to Àlex Lora's Red Shore (United States), a story about the first settlers on the planet Mars and a billionaire's plan that they get caught up in; Sean Wainsteim's Alterations (Canada), which shows us the darker side of fairy tales through two sisters who agree to sew in order to achieve their deepest desires; Hammerblow (Spain) by the García Bogliano brothers, which is about a man who has won the lottery but isn't accepted in his new affluent neighborhood; Karim Ouelhaj's Burning with Angels (Belgium), a story about madness and family violence, where a writer will end up getting to know his character through the terrified eyes of his family and Gonzalo Calzada's Blind Paradise (Argentina), where a young orphan escapes to a small island in the south of Argentina where he will become the target of the natives who live there.
In the series section, this year a total of 5 projects have been selected. Victor Garcia's Aigües de foscor (Spain), a project selected to champion the “Catalunya Imaginària” label, a production set in the Ebro Delta with echoes of M. Night Shyamalan's films; Maria Lara's Antarctica (Spain), a stop-motion adventure with a youthful and familiar tone but with a dystopian air and references to the 'Mad Max' franchise, 'Vesper' or 'Akira' among many others; Be Happy, or Else (Spain) by Chinh Van Tran and Eric Romero, another dystopia with touches of comedy set in an alternative reality where any kind of negative expression is forbidden; Steen Agro's Heretics (Czech Republic), a project where a young teenager opens a time hole in his room and sends a Rubik's Cube and other random objects to London in the Middle Ages; and Robyn Matuto's The Haunting of Trisha Lozada (Canada), where a 16-year-old girl begins her high school semester haunted by the ghost of her deceased mother.
The special mentions went to CJ Torres' Fallen Skies (Spain), an animated series that combines the adventure genre with elements of fantasy and science fiction; Guillermo Carbonell's La peste (Uruguay), set in a world where the dead begin to return to life, but not in the form of zombies, but rather scared to death and with an unquenchable thirst; and Nikki Bohm's The Werewolf of Lika (Croatia), the love story between a young girl and a handsome boy with a dark secret.
Thanks to the collaboration with other international film markets including NAFF - BIFAN (South Korea), FRONTIÈRES MARKET - Fantasia (Canada), BLOOD WINDOW - Ventana Sur (Argentina) or BIF MARKET - BIFFF (Belgium), and residencies such as Feratum - Feratum FF (Mexico), SITGES FANPITCH is part of an international network for the circulation of productions, thanks to which projects are presented at different markets. In the same way that some projects will begin their international journey in Sitges, some productions come to us directly from other festivals. So, in addition to the aforementioned selections, there are 7 additional projects coming to us from this international circuit:
Eric Tessier's Flo comes to us from Fantasia Festival's Frontières Market , and is about an 8-year-old girl who accidentally kills a cat, an act that will trigger a series of terrible events all around her; from NAFF - BIFAN comes Shreyom Ghosh's The Vampire of Sheung Shui , the story of a young boy who must prove to his parents that he is capable of adhering to family traditions but who in turn has a slight problem: He's transforming into a bloodthirsty vampire; Fredrik S. Hana' s Planet is the film selected at the BIFF Market in Brussels, a science fiction production where the Earth is threatened by a mysterious intergalactic force; Francisco de la Reguera’s Funerales Fantásticos comes straight from the FERATUM Fantastic Film Festival in Mexico and is about the owners of an old funeral parlor who must deal with the sudden resurrection of one of their own. And we continue in Latin America for the rest of the projects. From Blood Window, in Argentina, arrives Martín Desalvo's Saliva, an infectious blend of rock music and zombie movie and, on behalf of the Fant. Latina - WomanInFan initiative, which aims to promote fantastic genre production among Latin American women, La mujer que soñaba bajo el agua by Ale García and Carla Sierra lands in Sitges, a film about a woman who loses her third daughter and spirals into a delirium where the limits between reality and fiction are completely blurred. Finally, from Encuentro Internacional de Productores de Colombia (International Meeting of Colombian Producers) comes Mariana Gil Ríos' Otro jardín, a story set in 1990 in Medellín, where an 8-year-old girl slowly discovers the dark secrets hidden in her family.
To all these projects, we must add two other participants that have been invited by the SITGES - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia. The first of them is New Deadly Sins a spanish production presented jointly by Elisa Puerto Aubel, Gigi Romero and Anna Malgorzata Kasinska, participants in the I WOMANINFAN – SITGES FANLAB FANTASTIC RESIDENCE. In addition, Gaua Gauekoentzat, the new project from Paul Urkijo, who already knows what it's like to be at the Sitges Film Festival (he presented both Irati and Errementari here). This proposal arrives as a Guest Project Fantastic 7 Talent, and is a part of the Fantastic 7 initiative in alliance with Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes.
Sitges Coming Soon Selections
We conclude this battery of announcements with the films selected to participate in SITGES COMING SOON, a section for the presentation of horror, science fiction and fantastic films in diverse formats (feature films, short films, series, miniseries and documentaries). This is an event focusing on projects in the final stages of development, as well as finished films in search of support (financing, distribution, promotion, etc.).
The films selected to participate in this year's edition are:
- Simbiontes – Christian Mejia Carrascal (Colombia)
- Monstro – Andrés Goteira (Spain)
- Llueve sobre babel – Gala del Sol (Spain)
- Mitra, apaga la luz para poder ver – Diego Bellocchio (Argentina)
- Once Upon a Time Muaythai Rainbow – Kullachat Jitcajonwanich (Thailand)
