As the epidemic seemingly recedes, Sitges Festival recovers old and good feelings. After two indiscriminate pressures, mostly due to the irreducible talent of its organizers and the indomitable passion of its fantastic fans, sites finally back to normalor what we understand from normality in 2019: Nearly 47,000 tickets have been sold to date, this figure, as the director stated in the presentation of the festival, angel roommarks the record numbers of the historic fiftieth anniversary edition in 2018, when almost 68,000 tickets were sold. And that alone can only be a source of joy: there is a great desire for Sitges, for fantastic cinema, for cinema on the big screen. And without restrictions.
Another piece of information that shows Sitges is back on its feet: list of dazzling ‘celebrities’ of the genre will visit the festival to present a film or receive an award. The future of big names like Dario Argento, Eva Green, Peter Strickland, Quentin Dupieux, Edgar Wright or Neil Marshall was already known, but yesterday Sala confirmed that the star roster will be complete, among others: Robert Englundthe actor behind Freddy Krueger’s knives; Michel HazanaviciusOscar-winning director of ‘The artist’; and attention, Lee JungJaeHe is none other than the charismatic 456 from the little-known TV show. ‘squid game‘. The Korean actor, who recently won an Emmy for best performance for his work on the Netflix series, will visit Sitges to present his directorial debut, the political thriller Hunt.
The ‘experts’ of genre cinema will applaud another of Sala’s announced visits: the visit of the special effects and make-up master Colin ArthurThe one who will receive the Festival’s Grand Honor Award. The monkey prosthetics, both featured in the prologue to Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, or the bloodbath falling on the walls of the Overlook Hotel in ‘The Shining’. Or the mechanical creatures from the recently deceased Wolfgang Petersen’s ‘The Neverending Story’; or the severed head of the evil android Ash (Ian Holm) from Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien: The Eighth Passenger’. A great fantasy like a musician Claudio SimonettiAt the head of the goblin group Dario Argento who created the unique musical foundations of the ‘giallo’ in iconic films such as ‘Profondo rosso’ or ‘Suspiria’ and will receive the Méliès d’Or in Sitges.
Zombie Walk is back
After two years of mandatory fallow due to pandemic restrictions, traditional Zombie WalkThe colorful parade of fans posing as the undead returns to the streets of Sitges, especially on October 8. He will be an extraordinary godfather this year, the aforementioned Michel Hazanaviciuswho visited the festival to present the big zombie bet of this edition, ‘Cut!’, ‘remake’ of Japanese undead film ‘A Cross of the Dead’.