The Sitges festival returns to the fray for its 55th edition, paying homage to a cult film that is now four decades old and that will serve as the 'leitmotif' throughout the event, which will be held from October 6 to 16. And it is that the world of Tron (Steven Lisberger, 1982), a visionary film in its time that proposes virtual games and talks about the multiverse, is "deeply current", according to the director of the festival Ángel Sala at a press conference.
Starring Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner, Tron also inspires this year's poster, which mixes virtual reality with the emblematic King Kong of the festival dedicated to fantastic cinema, while inviting a trip to the other side of the screen. A commitment to illustration in which the China Madrid agency has returned to work, focused on science fiction.
Lisberger's film, shot in 70mm, will be screened at the Melià Hotel Auditorium "in the best possible copy", added Sala. Underestimated at the time, it clicked at the box office among other reasons because "it was less empathetic than other Lucas or Spielberg productions and it wasn't a youth film either."
It should be remembered that other mythical 1982 films such as Blade Runner or The Thing did not work at the box office either. Of course, Sala wanted to remember that that year was very important for fantastic cinema, since E.T., Poltergeist or Mad Max 2 were released, and he has stressed that Tron was a pioneering film that has influenced the genre due to its narrative and now it will allow the debate between the public of the festival.
In addition to presenting the poster and announcing the leitmotif of this edition, the Sitges festival has previewed some of the titles that will form part of its official program, predominantly European films that bring different perspectives to the genre by directors with a long history such as Dario Argento, which returns to the giallo with Occhiali Neri (Dark Glasses), about a blind young woman who, with the help of a Chinese boy, wants to put an end to a serial killer, and Sitges regulars, such as the French king of the absurd Quentin Dupieux, who will present two works : Incroyable mais vrais and Fumer fait tousser.
Another name very present in the contest is Peter Strickland, who will bring Flux Gourmet, "a new proposal on gastronomy" delirious and disturbing starring Asa Butterfield and Gwendoline Christie. The female talent will come from the hand of names that stand out in the horror genre such as Hanna Bergholm or Léa Mysius.
Among the national talent, the Galician director Alberto Vázquez will come to present Unicorn Wars, a French co-production anti-war animation feature film that has recently competed in the official section of the Annecy festival.
After the parenthesis caused by the pandemic, a part of the Órbita section returns, dedicated to the thriller, with a series of Asian action films in which the South Korean Hunt stands out, the interesting directorial debut of Lee Jung-jae -protagonist of the successful The Squid Game, seen at the Cannes Film Festival, and Lee Sang-yong's The Roundup, the sequel to Kang Yoon-sung's 2017 Lawless City, already the highest-grossing Korean film of the year.
And the French competition will also see its inaugural film, Coupez!, in which Michel Hazanavicius, the director of the Oscar-winning The artist, makes a zombie comedy rereading of the Japanese film One Cut of the Dead, one of Sitges' sensations in 2018. After two years without parading, the undead will also happily return to the streets of Sitges in the traditional Zombie Walk.
Mònica Garcia, general director of the Sitges Foundation, has pointed out that the festival continues to work on the "visibility" of women creators of fantastic cinema and for this reason they call for the making of a 'short-teaser' on the genre that , subsequently, it should serve as a "sample of a feature film idea".
During the presentation this Tuesday at the Verdi cinemas, neither the title of the opening film nor the closing film have yet been revealed. Neither of the confirmed guests, but they will be announced in the coming days.
