Welcome 2025 Sitges Film Festival Poster and First Award Winners and Special Guests

The Horror Comedy Genre Takes Center Stage

We present you the Festival's 58th edition poster, that will be spotlighting comedy in horror and science fiction movies.

This year's image invites audiences to come and play, following the leitmotif of an edition that aims to uphold the pleasure of laughing at horror movies, as well as the stimulating pleasure of remembering that humor can be the best catalyst for our fears. We will celebrate one of the combinations that has best succeeded in reinventing, renewing, subverting, and dismantling the recurring motifs that have historically defined fantastic films.

Once again this year, the Festival's identity stems from its collaboration with the CHINA part of LLYC Agency. “This year's poster draws on the most straightforward question possible: what happens when the Sitges universe collides with comedy? And the answer we came up with features two deliberately obvious elements that coexist at a point halfway between unsettling and playful. And they allow for an interpretation that's as open as the films themselves born from this crossover of genres,” explains the agency, which, as it also did for the 2023 edition, has once again entrusted its creation to photographer Nacho Alegre.

Re-animating This Genre 40 Years Later

To pay tribute to this genre, the Festival is honored to welcome one of its greatest exponents: Joe Dante. This American filmmaker revolutionized macabre humor with Gremlins (1984) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), both produced by Steven Spielberg, consolidating the horror comedy subgenre; and with films such as Piranha (1978),  a madcap spoof of the classic Jaws; or Hollywood Boulevard (1976), his debut film co-directed along with Allan Arkush. His unique vision—combining horror, irony, and an impeccable sense of timing—led him to direct many other iconic films, including The Howling (1981), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Explorers (1985), The 'Burbs (1989), Matinee (1993), and The Hole (2009).

Many key members of the cast and crew from Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator, one of the most emblematic and comical movies ever made in the horror and science fiction genre, will also be visiting Sitges. We're going to take a trip down memory lane and reunite the cast and crew to commemorate its award for Best Feature Film at the Sitges Film Festival 40 years ago now, in 1985, an accolade that cemented its cult status. We'll also be screening a spectacular 4K restored version of the film, specially produced to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft, the film is an excellent example of 1980s horror that, as Sam Raimi proclaimed, conceived blood and guts scenarios as an irresistible dissolution where "laughs and chills" are presented as two sides of the same coin. 

Sean S. Cunningham, Father of Friday the 13th, Time Machine Award Winner

This year, the Sitges Film Festival will honor the career of Sean S. Cunningham, creator of the legendary Friday the 13th horror franchise, which gave life to the iconic Jason Voorhees and became one of the most influential sagas in the slasher genre. With the release of the first film in 1980, he set the stage for a new wave of teen horror movies, turning fear into a mass phenomenon for an entire generation. With more than a dozen sequels, a remake, comic book and video game adaptations, and a loyal fan community across the globe, Cunningham has influenced filmmakers the world over and left an indelible mark on the popular imaginary.

Throughout his career, he has also produced other horror films, including House (1985) and House II: The Second Story (1987), which cemented his reputation as a benchmark producer in this genre.