Sitges 2021: Two More Spanish Films Join The Lineup

The latest in Spanish Fantastic lands at Sitges 2021

 

David Casademunt's 'El páramo' and David Hebrero's 'Y todos arderán' have been added to the lineup

 

The very latest Spanish fantastic genre productions will be making their appearance at the 54th Sitges - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia. Films by acclaimed directors including Álex de la Iglesia with Veneciafrenia or Paco Plaza with La abuela, will be presented in Sitges along with other representative works from the most recent national fantastic panorama.

 

Catalan David Casademunt's feature debut, El páramo, will have its world premiere in Sitges, in the In Competition Official Fantàstic Selection. The film, starring Inma Cuesta and Roberto Álamo, tells the story of the quiet life of a family that lives isolated from society and that is disrupted by a terrifying creature that will put the ties that unite them to the test. Also added, at a special screening, is the epic horror story Y todos arderán, David Hebrero's second feature film. A saga about a mother's quest for revenge against the town that caused her to lose her son, starring Macarena Gómez, Rodolfo Sancho, Ana Milán and Rubén Ochandiano.

 

These two features join other Spanish films already announced in the In Competition Official Fantàstic Selection: the unsettling science fiction film Tres, by the award-winning Juanjo Giménez, starring Marta Nieto and Miki Esparbé, and the world premiere of Visitante, Alberto Evangelio's feature debut, starring Iria de Rio, Miquel Fernández, Jan Cornet and Sandra Cervera, about a marital crisis that escalates into a fantastic thriller of parallel realities.

 

In the special screenings included in the Official Fantàstic Selection, three eagerly awaited projects can be enjoyed. The world premiere of Álex de la Iglesia's Veneciafrenia, with its powerful blend of slasher and giallo; the long-awaited return of Paco Plaza with La abuela, a nightmare scripted by Carlos Vermut, and the premiere of the four stories from Historias para no dormir, the return of the mythical series created by Chicho Ibáñez Serrador fifty years ago, which brings together the best names in Spanish fantastic genre today, including Rodrigo Cortés, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Paco Plaza and Paula Ortiz, together with a top-notch cast.

 

Spanish fantastic will be present in the majority of the Festival's sections. In Panorama Fantàstic there will be two world premieres. The Galician horror film Jacinto, by Javi Camino, about a boy trapped in the body of an adult, and the terrifying van-based road-movie The Passenger, directed by Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González. 

 

Rediscovering classics

 

In addition to the latest batch of Spanish fantastic genre films, the screening of classics will also have a prominent place at Sitges 2021. As part of the retrospective dedicated to werewolves, "The Beast Within", we will be able to see The Ancines Woods (Pedro Olea, 1970) and Night of the Werewolf (Paul Naschy, 1981), two essential films in our cinema's history. Naschy will be remembered twice, since the Seven Chances section will be programming Howl of the Devil, a 1987 work directed by the Madrid-born director and actor.

 

Meanwhile, Sitges Classics will be rediscovering two other Spanish films. Strange Voyage, by Fernando Fernán Gómez, a cult piece inspired by a storyline by Luis García Berlanga, and the 4K remastered copy of Álex de la Iglesia's The Day of the Beast. 

 

In collaboration with the Catalan Film Library, two Catalan productions will be screened as part of the "Catalunya Imaginària" retrospective. They are La banyera (Jesús Garay, 1989), where a man suffering from amnesia tries to locate a witness to his lover's murder, and La dama del alba (Francesc Rovira Beleta, 1966), a phantasmagorical film about a mysterious disappearance.