The Sitges Festival isn’t announcing the winners of this edition just yet, but it already has a standout for movie lovers and the industry. Estíbaliz Burgaleta has been awarded a scholarship titled Girls just want to have a fan, created by the organization to encourage gender-focused projects and charitable female influence in fantasy cinema. Burgaleta will deliver a short presentation of her feature project El Chino, a tale centered on a zombie invasion inside a supermarket. Drawing inspiration from enduring classics like the Korean hit Train to Busan and Paco Plaza’s national success Rec 3, Burgaleta has been writing since 2012. She has directed several short films and contributed to successful series including Velvet, with involvement in Netflix’s You Are Not Special. The Sitges initiative supports her transition into feature cinema, a milestone still pursued by many talented women.
Mónica García Massagué, who leads the festival’s WomaninFan program and serves as managing director of the Sitges Festival Foundation, is committed to creating opportunities for women entering the fantasy genre’s filmmaking path to advance their early projects. Nine finalists have the chance to attend industry events during the festival, strengthening connections and enabling meaningful networking across the sector.
García Massagué has also released a book compiling articles about the involvement of female filmmakers in the genre, aiming to offer a fresh perspective on the field. Voices shaping this vision include festival director and film educator Angel Room, critic and teacher Violeta Kovacsics, producer and festival programmer Heidi Honeycutt, among others who illuminate the female gaze from their distinct angles.
invisible
The history of cinema has often sidelined women, a narrative reflected in a book parade about figures like Thea Von Port, widow of Fritz Lang, and the screenwriter of the landmark Metropolis, alongside pioneering American director Alice Guy-Blaché. These trailblazers carved a path in a male‑dominated industry. Stephanie Rothmann stands out as the first woman to receive a Directors Guild of America fellowship and to replicate her work in the B‑production era of the 1960s and 1970s, challenging norms that confined women to family roles or limited professional opportunities.
Are there any women’s movies?
Diego López-Fernández, the festival’s programmer, guides viewers through the evolution of female creators in Spanish fantasy cinema. Although many female filmmakers have been boxed as auteurs rather than mainstream box office draws, their work remains a cultural focal point for the genre. Kovacsics notes that there is more than one way to define women’s cinema, emphasizing the contribution of female filmmakers to normalizing women’s roles in genre storytelling beyond simple gender labels.
Industry quotas
A discussion on quotas appears in an interview with filmmaker and programmer Annick Mahnert, a leading figure at the Frontières industry forum. She speaks about the fears and sensitivities surrounding the topic. While subsidies and support are essential, the argument is that the most important factor is the quality of productions that reach audiences, strengthening the presence of women in the industry.
Names like Claire Denis, Ana Lily Amirpour, Jessica Hausner, Céline Sciamma, Jennifer Kent, Julia Ducournau, along with Patty Jenkins and Karyn Kusama, and Mary Lambert, recur as touchstones in the broader conversation. Their varied approaches illustrate the range of directions available within the genre.
Looking ahead, the future seems to orbit around a clear idea: the ability to answer with instinct and clarity, echoed by directors who have crafted a distinctive voice, much like the reference points people lean on when discussing Lynch or Hitchcock-inspired cinema.