07/10/2021 - The 54th edition of the festival kicks off on 7 October, with a white-hot selection of 269 titles, standing out among which is a series paying tribute to Chicho Ibáñez Serrador

At its 54^th edition, the Sitges – International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia is presenting a white-hot programme consisting of 269 works, which will be on show from 7-17 October. The latest Spanish genre productions will get an airing at Sitges, including those by established directors such as Álex de la Iglesia (with Veneciafrenia [+see also:
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film profile]) and Paco Plaza (with The Grandmother [+see also:
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interview: Paco Plaza
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The debut feature by Catalonian director David Casademunt, El páramo [+see also:
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Other Spanish movies in the Official Fantastic Competition Section include the unsettling flick Out of Sync [+see also:
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interview: Juanjo Giménez
film profile] by Juanjo Giménez, starring Marta Nieto, and the world premiere of Visitor [+see also:
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film profile], the feature debut by Alberto Evangelio, starring Iria de Rio, Miquel Fernández, Jan Cornet and Sandra Cervera, about a marital crisis that turns into a fantastical thriller revolving around parallel realities. The Panorama Fantàstic strand will host two world premieres of Spanish films: the Galician movie Jacinto by Javi Camino, about a boy trapped in an adult’s body, and the horrifying road movie The Passenger [+see also:
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interview: Raúl Cerezo and Fernando Go…
film profile] by Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González.

This edition of the festival will also be showing off the totally bonkers Titane [+see also:
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interview: Julia Ducournau, Vincent Li…
film profile]: its director, Julia Ducournau, paid a visit to the gathering back in 2016 with Raw [+see also:
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interview: Julia Ducournau
film profile], which was crowned with three prizes. Norway’s Tommy Wirkola, the man behind Dead Snow [+see also:
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film profile], Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters [+see also:
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film profile] and What Happened to Monday? [+see also:
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film profile], is back with The Trip, a black comedy about a crisis-riddled married couple who decide to get away for a weekend in a cabin in the woods, hoping for a chance to start from scratch… just as soon as the other spouse is dead.

Away from the main core of the festival, there will be thematic offshoots and focuses on the means of expression in genre film, including new styles and mythologies stemming from more popular ones (such as in In the Earth [+see also:
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interview: Valdimar Jóhannsson
film profile]). Meanwhile, invoking the past or the mundanity of the day-to-day can lead to the breakdown of one’s inner circle (in She Will [+see also:
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interview: Charlotte Colbert
film profile], Inexorable [+see also:
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interview: Fabrice Du Welz
film profile], Silent Night [+see also:
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film profile], New Zealand’s Coming Home in the Dark and Canada’s Violation), and other titles visualise reality under the scourge of the pandemic, either directly or allegorically (The Feast [+see also:
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film profile] and the USA’s We Need to Do Something). On the other hand, while touring this year’s Official Section, we find variations on classical themes, such as childhood evil in The Innocents [+see also:
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interview: Eskil Vogt
film profile], cursed abodes in The Deep House [+see also:
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film profile], teenage angst in the US title Seance, cannibalism in Barbaque, lycanthropy in Eight for Silver [+see also:
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film profile], the classic slasher in Halloween Kills, and giallo in the aforementioned Veneciafrenia.

Information on all of the festival’s titles (which a single article would be insufficient to cover) and sections can be found on its website.

(Translated from Spanish)