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l Sitges Festival has grown exponentially in recent years. Some nostalgics say that it has nothing to do with what it once was and that it has become an uninhabitable space for critics and press, like most top-tier festivals.
The truth is that Sitges' great charm has always been its ability to find an extraordinary balance between the demands of an international festival (a carefully curated selection of films throughout the year, high-caliber guests, interesting parallel sections, and professional meetings, among other things) with a warm and close atmosphere, where it's not difficult to end up having a beer with Guillermo del Toro at the Auditori bar or chatting with Emma Suárez at one of the parties organized daily during the festival.
Sitges is a powerful engine and driver of the audiovisual industry, and not just of the fantastic genre. The festival has been a meeting point for creators and has seen the birth of various projects, initiatives, and businesses. It has also witnessed the joys and miseries of national and international stars. From Anthony Perkins to David Cronenberg, passing through Quentin Tarantino, many stars have left their mark and stories to keep you awake between the walls of the Hotel Calipolis or Melià.
While the applause still echoes from the Auditori, as King Kong's figure grabs the plane on the screen, or the roars of the large audience thunder as a sadistic Asian rips out the heart of the supporting actress with his hands. While that is happening, we have asked various people linked to the festival throughout its history for anecdotes and memories.
Paco Plaza. Director.
For me, Sitges is one of the best festivals in the world. It's super consolidated but still very close and endearing. It's a festival where people go to like the movies. The audience always goes in favor of the movies, and that's not common.
I met Jaume Balagueró and J. A. Bayona in Sitges. Maybe I wouldn't have made Rec without the festival… For me, the most important year was 2007. J. inaugurated it with The Orphanage, and then we also screened Rec… And both of us did super well. That coincidence was miraculous. That year the important films of the festival were Spanish and, moreover, made by colleagues… A dream.
Joan Lluís Goas. Producer, journalist, and festival director from 1983 to 1992.
I remember the arrival of Christopher Lee. He spent the entire festival surly, distant, speaking only in English, not wanting to say anything about fantasy cinema or about the figure of Dracula, saying that he was an actor and that he had worked with Spielberg. Until the last day he remembered the filming of Vampir-Cuadecuc, with Pere Portabella, and ended up speaking perfect Spanish and singing Baixant de la Font del Gat in Catalan. Wonderful!
However, Anthony Perkins was a handful. He was really disturbed, strange, he came very crossed, in a superstar role that had nothing to do with the situation. And he started to get very surly when the organization refused to go get him marijuana.
I keep the memories lived with great filmmakers when they were just geeks and lovers of the genre.
Jaume Figueras. Journalist and film critic.
My memory is from when the Auditori did not exist and neither did the Melià hotel. The festival headquarters was the Retiro cinema and many films arrived without subtitles. In one of the first festivals, I think, in 1973, a Korean film was shown with Swedish subtitles while a willing female voice-over read an elementary translation in Spanish from the projection booth and tried to do all the actors' voices. Unforgettable!
Edmon Roch. Producer, critic and press officer for the festival from 1989 to 1992.
My favorite memory is surely that of Fay Wray discovering the Palau Maricel on the day of her press conference, and asking to be able to return for a private visit that I had the pleasure of giving her... And taking her all the way to the top where she liked to smell the Mediterranean and tell me anecdotes from the filming of The Most Dangerous Game and The Crimes of the Museum, and Doctor X... But never from King Kong... From that moment on we met on several occasions and she told me with prodigious memory anecdotes from filming and about Paul Lukas.
She promised to return to Sitges, because she wanted to go back to the Maricel... I also remember Sam Raimi's show demonstrating his condition as a stuntman when presenting Darkman, giving a deadly scare to the gala presenter and half the audience.
Pere Vall. Journalist and film critic.
It was in the early 90s, and I worked for the newspaper El Observador de la Actualidad. I had to interview Dolph Lundgren. What was I doing interviewing a super tough hunk... precisely me, who back then was playing the intellectual from the Filmoteca? Well, I have to confess that talking to the Swedish star served as a lesson for me, and since then I have treated both hipster idols and mainstream stars with the same rigor. Mr. Lundgren, who made and continues to make popcorn movies, surprised me with his education and culture, his savoir-faire and, of course, his exorbitant height and his killer handshake. My fingers haven't recovered blood flow since that day. Let's remember that Dolph studied chemical engineering and, according to Wikipedia, speaks six languages: Swedish, English, German, French, Spanish, and a little Japanese. When will he learn Catalan? Dolph, we need you!
Carolina López. Director of Animac Lleida, Xcèntric and programmer of Anima't, at the Sitges Festival, from 1993 to 2004. Ten years make for many memories, but here are some unforgettable images.
Setting up the exhibition The Fabulous Fauna of Ladislas Starewitch with her granddaughter Béatrice-Martin and touching those wonderful, ancient puppets…
Eva Svankmajerová emotional, next to Jan Svankmajer at the exhibition Jan and Eva Svankmajer. The Language of Analogy, and visiting the Sitges cemetery with both of them.
The day the original drawings of Osamu Tezuka arrived in Sitges for the exhibition Tezuka, The Emperor of Anime, I couldn't believe it.
Visiting Colonia Güell with Isao Takahata, who came for the festival.
The Oscar-winning octogenarian Faith Hubley presenting a part of her retrospective on the outdoor screen of Anima't a la Fresca to the children of Sitges and swimming on Sant Sebastià beach the next day.
Introducing dozens of artists from all over the world at Cine Prado, including Saul Bass and the Quay Brothers.
The great Satoshi Kon, very kind, signing autographs for every last fan for almost 3 hours.
Álex Gorina. Film critic and festival director for five years.
1995 was an unforgettable Sitges for me: my second year as director, with Ray Harryhausen as guest of honor, Álex de la Iglesia making the Auditori explode with El día de la bestia, and the audience roaring against Manoel de Oliveira and his O convento, one of those titles hated by purists, though not as much as Michael Haneke's 71 fragments of a chronology of chance, which won later. The spectators wanted to kill me for having programmed it, they chased me to beat me up to the Cau de la Vila. It would take them another decade to discover that Haneke was a genius! You can't get that far ahead of trends!
But 1995 was the year Todd Haynes returned to the festival. We had discovered him years earlier with Poison, and in 1995 he came with Safe, one of his most secret films. We became very good friends, we fell in love. And a few weeks later I accompanied him on a vacation to Lanzarote. I remember driving around the island in a rental car listening to all the songs that would end up being part of Velvet Goldmine, his masterpiece, and I remember reading the script with him in the hotel bed, and other wonders that I won't explain now.
Sitges has been half a life for me, and sometimes half a death. But it was also the origin of one of the most impossible and beautiful love stories one could dream of.
Featured images: 1. Andrew Funk, president of the Homeless Entrepreneur foundation 2. Posters of some of the festival films. 3. Actress Marta Milans presented "Asher", by Ron Perlman. 4. "I have been raped twice and narrowly escaped the third time," confessed Pam Grier, actress from "Jackie Brown." 5. Festival entrance 6. Jack Taylor, an old acquaintance of the festival and an essential face of genre cinema. 7. Festival attendees 8. François Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell, directors of the film Turbo Kid 9. Álvaro Morte 10. Festival attendees 11. Michelle Jenner arrives greeting fans. 12. Luís Tosar. Sitges is also a great showcase for Spanish cinema. 13. Ernesto Alterio 14. Adriana Torrebejano