Sitges 2013 welcomes Takashi Miike at a festival marked by the "birth of evil"

So the countdown begins! Exactly six months from today Sitges 2013 will be raising the curtain to a festival that can already announce one of the current stars in international cinema: Japanese Takashi Miike, who has confirmed he will be attending the Festival with a brand new film: Lesson of the Evil. Sitges 2013 will be disturbing, so much so that this year’s poster evokes the birth of evil and one of the icons of fantasy, Rosemary’s Baby, (Roman Polanski, 1968).

And arriving at this disturbing Sitges is one of the masters of current movie making and a point of reference for today’s generations of filmmakers: Takashi Miike. 10 years after his first appearance in Sitges, Miike will be returning to a Festival that adores him and that considers him one of the main points of reference in current film.

Sitges will be honoring the prolific Takashi Miike and screening, in its Official In-Competition Fantàstic Selection, Lesson of the Evil, which explains the traumas of a psychopathic teacher. On the occasion of his presence in Sitges, the Festival will be programing a retrospective-tribute to Miike and publishing a book on him.

In 2003 –one year after sharing the Orient Express Award for Araburu Taashi-Tachi (Agitator)–, Takashi Miike landed in Sitges to receive the Time Machine Award. That same year, he won the Maria Award for best special effects for Gozu, an award he repeated the following year with Izo. At Sitges 2008, he obtained a Noves Visions Award Special Mention for God's Puzzle. In 2011, Sitges screened Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai and last year, in the Noves Visions section For Love's Sake.

New fantastic tendencies, Catalan talent, diversity of screens
Sitges 2013’s main goal this year will be the selection of trend-setting films in the different branches of fantastic cinema, and will be especially responsive to the generation of new talent and, above all, the consolidation of genre in Catalan film. In addition, the Festival is committed to investigating new forms of film creation and production, the diversity of screens, the impact of television on genre, and well as transmedia and other applications. 

Sitges will also be celebrating the more than two decades of existence of two of its most representative sections, Anima’t and Seven Chances. Regarding the first, since 1992 it has become an important presentational forum for the best worldwide animation in feature and short format, aspiring to be, at the same time, a fundamental unifying force in the expansive Catalan animation industry. As for Seven Chances, coordinated with the Catalan Association of Film Critics and Writers, it has become a point of reference for that invisible cinema that resists reaching the movie listings and that has perfectly combined, throughout its existence, the concepts of genre and auteur.

Institutional and sponsor support
Now more than ever, the Festival appreciates the commitment and support of its sponsors who, once again this year, have confirmed their participation: Gas Natural Fenosa (Main Sponsor), Meliá Sitges and El Periódico de Catalunya (Sponsors), Deluxe (Collaborator), TV3 (Official Television), Telentrada de CatalunyaCaixa (Ticket Sales), Autolica - Mercedes Benz (Official Vehicle) and Moritz (Official Beer).

Sitges 2013 will be made possible also thanks to the support of the Sitges Town Council, the Generalitat de Catalunya’s Department of Culture and the Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales. The 46^th Festival’s organization is already working on the planning of the Festival which, once again, will count on the Jurat Carnet Jove (Youth Jury), thanks to an agreement with the Agència Catalana de Joventut, the organism that manages the Carnet Jove.