17/09/2014 - In Madrid, festival director Ángel Sala has unveiled the upcoming edition of the event (3-12 October), which features the recurring theme of dreams as the inspiration for all kinds of fiction

Just two days away from the firing of the starting pistol for San Sebastián, marking the beginning of the Spanish festival season, a press conference has taken place with the head of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival, which last year welcomed 182,000 viewers, invited 2,000 guests and organised over 250 screenings over ten days. Ángel Sala, who expressed his gratitude for the great work being done by the rest of the country’s festivals in such hard times, wished San Sebastián the best of luck and confirmed that the budget for this edition of Sitges remains unchanged from last year, at €1.6 million.

Inés París, of the SGAE Foundation, joined Sala at the press conference; the foundation will present an award to Catalan film students during the festival, and París wondered whether the fantastic film genre was something of interest only to young people: “Thanks to Sitges, Spanish people of all ages enjoy this genre, although men tend to like it more than women. And as Stephen King says, horror takes us back to our childhood; it’s a celebration of the fact that we’re alive and that this time it’s not our turn to die,” she quipped.

Meanwhile, Sala shed light on the festival programme, in which titles from all around the world will be alternating with each other. He stressed that Sitges “is trying to be a catalogue demonstrating trends in a genre that is so influential that it gobbles up other ones, to such an extent that, today, 70% of film productions are connected to it in some way”. The festival will prove this through its myriad sections, film marathons and tributes, including one dedicated to Antonio Banderas (who will present Autómata [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) and another to the late Álex Angulo.

But, as the festival director insists, above all, Sitges will be a celebration of film, an atypical, free festival created for its audience, who will be able to enjoy titles such as Spanish film REC 4 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jaume Balagueró
film profile], which will open the event, Musarañas (produced by Álex de la Iglesia – read the news), and the Catalan movies La distancia and L´altra frontera.

(Translated from Spanish)