Alice Krige and Nick Antosca, Presented With the Sitges 2021 Time Machine Award

The directors of 'Luzifer' (Peter Brunner) and 'Sound of Violence' (Alex Noyer) visit Sitges to present their respective films.

These last two days were packed with films that were eagerly awaited by Festival fans, like the time travel thriller Last Night in Soho by Edgar Wright or the Thai production The Medium (Rango-zong), by Banjong Pisanthanakun, director of the remarkable Shutter in 2004. Once again, this year, the Festival demonstrates its ability to mirror the career of many genre directors who, once they have made their debut in Sitges and won the hearts of its audiences, stay there forever.

Yesterday, Wednesday, was marked by the visit of director, writer and screenwriter Nick Antosca, creator of terrifying fantastic universes like those seen in the Channel Zero TV series, which put him in the spotlight, and author of spine-chilling novels like Midnight Picnic. Antosca landed in Sitges to receive the Time Machine Award and present Antlers, a film directed by Scott Cooper for which he wrote the screenplay. The same award was also presented today to Alice Krige, an actress well known for her debut in Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire in 1981 and for bringing the Borg queen to life in Star Trek: First Contact (1996), among others. Krige, who participated in a meeting with the public as part of the industry activities, also appeared at the press conference for She Will, the film she stars in, accompanying director Charlotte Colbert, where she emotionally expressed her gratitude for the award: "When I first found out, I wasn't expecting it, I hadn't even expected anyone to have seen my work. I am extremely excited that it is coming from a country like yours where there is an extraordinary filmmaking tradition with such unusual, provocative and bizarre films." Meanwhile, Colbert spoke about the film she directed: "She Will is shot in northern Scotland, in the place where the last woman to be burned for witchcraft lived. Three thousand women were condemned during that time for not fitting into the system. A tragedy that could be felt in the energy permeating the environment as we filmed."

And our screenings never stop in Sitges. Debuts like Camille Griffin's Silent Night, a Christmas piece loaded with black humor and featuring actress Keira Knightley, Branko Tomovic's Vampire, which reimagines the vampire figure in rural Serbia, the hard-hitting rape & revenge Violation by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli or the fantasy world with its psychological metaphor The Blazing World (Carlson Young), all lived side by side with the extraordinary creatures in Freaks Out, the second approximation to fantastic genre by the director of They Call Me Jeeg, one of the big surprises at Sitges 2015, Mickey Keating's return with Offseason, a nightmare with a nod to Lovecraft's cosmic horror universe, Bertrand Mancido's stimulating vision of French science fiction After Blue, or Inexorable, the latest project by Fabrice Du Welz, a Sitges regular and the creator of films including Calvaire (2004), Vinyan (2008), Alleluia (2014) or the most recent Adoration, winner of the Special Jury Award and Best Cinematography at Sitges 2019.

Over the last 48 hours, activities have been taking place in Sitges that focus all the Industry's attention on the seaside Festival. The presentations of feature films continue at the Sitges Pitchbox, the setting where yesterday the new Showrunners Lab was held, an introductory seminar to this role with a round table discussion and a mentoring session featuring Nick Antosca, Jannik Tai Mosholt and Teresa Fernández-Valdés. There was also the Producers Meet Producers event organized by the Festival in association with the PAC (Audiovisual Producers of Catalonia) and the presentation of the "Guide for the Incorporation of Sustainability Criteria in Films and Film Shoots" with the presence of Carlota Guerrero (President of the Catalonia Film Commission), Miquel Curanta (Director of the Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises, ICEC), Luz Molina (legal advisor and head of the European Green Screen Project at PROMALAGA) and Albert Battochi (film commissioner at the Trentino Film Fund and Commission).

As for parallel activities, in the last few hours there were presentations of the books El almanaque del vídeo. Historia oral de la era del videoclub (The Video Almanac. Oral History of the Videoclub Era) by Xavier Sánchez Pons, Terror sobre ruedas (Terror on Wheels) by Enrique Agudo, Fantasmas. Relatos victorianos y eduardianos (Ghosts. Victorian and Edwardian Tales) as well as H. P. Lovecraft anotado. (H. P. Lovecraft Annotated). Más allá de Arkham. Edición anotada (Beyond Arkham. Annotated edition), both presented by Jordi Sánchez Navarro and Jordi Ojeda, the comic Entremundos by Eduardo Zamarella and Day, by the author Belén Culebras.