Unspooling in the beach town of the same name, the 58th edition of the Sitges – International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia (9-19 October) will highlight the best in genre cinema, ranging from the fully fantastical to the fantastical-adjacent. The event will open with Alpha [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film] by Julia Ducournau, whose 2017 film Raw [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Julia Ducournau
fiche film] and 2022 effort Titane [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Julia Ducournau, Vincent L…
fiche film] also played at previous editions of Sitges.

Through its run, the festival will also give out a handful of prizes, including the Grand Honorary Award to prolific Spanish actress Carmen Maura and Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, the Time Machine Award to British actor Benedict Cumberbatch and Italian master of the spaghetti western Enzo G Castellari, and the WomanInFan Award to US producer Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, The Walking Dead series).

Sitges’ main competitive strand, the Official Fantastic Competition, for feature films not yet released in Spain, boasts a selection of European favourites from recent festivals, including Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prix winner A Useful Ghost [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film], Radu Jude’s AI-driven Dracula [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Radu Jude
fiche film], Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s giallo-inspired spy flick Reflection in a Dead Diamond [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forz…
fiche film], Dylan Southern’s The Thing with Feathers [+lire aussi :
critique
fiche film], Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film] and Emilie Blichfeldt’s gore-horror The Ugly Stepsister [+lire aussi :
critique
fiche film]. Prizes in the section will go to the top films, and there will also be Awards for Best Director, Best Performances, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Special Effects and Best Music.

Sitges Collection, the strand of out-of-competition works comprising acclaimed films, features a handful of similarly recognisable works. These include Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
fiche film] (reuniting him once more with Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons), Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, Luc Besson’s own take on the vampire myth (Dracula: A Love Tale) and Lucile Hadžihalilovic’s The Ice Tower [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Lucile Hadžihalilović
fiche film].

Arco, the debut feature by French comic-book artist and animator Ugo Bienvenu, will pull double duty in both the Sitges Collection and the Anima’t section. The Berlinale Teddy Award winner Lesbian Space Princess by Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese will play in both Anim’at and the Noves Visions section, for films that dabble in formal experimentation. Other Noves Visions selections include Alireza Khatami's Sundance prizewinner The Things You Kill [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Alireza Khatami
fiche film] and the IDFA opener About a Hero [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Piotr Winiewicz
fiche film] by Piotr Winiewicz, another movie taking on the interrogation of AI in film.

Òrbita, which is dedicated to works “bordering on the fantastic”, includes thrillers, martial-arts flicks and adventure tales. Asian movies – or films somehow connected to Asia – often take a front seat in this section, leading to the inclusion of Gabriele Mainetti’s Forbidden City [+lire aussi :
critique
fiche film] and John Maclean’s samurai film Tornado, both martial arts-centric works with European production backgrounds. One award, for Best Thriller, will go to a film in the section.

As part of its membership of the Méliès International Festival Federation, Sitges will also hand out its Méliès d’Argent Awards for Best European Production in both the feature-film and short-film categories. The winning shorts of the Anima’t section and the Official Fantastic Competition for shorts will both immediately qualify for Oscar consideration.