The beast awakens… The 54th Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia unleashes its wild nature by announcing the first names in its lineup! It will be held from 7th to 17th October.
An edition that will show the widest range of trends in genre cinema, through the range variety of styles and looks that coexist in the current panorama.
One of the novelties within its program for this year’s edition is WomanInFan: a project created with the aim of supporting women filmmakers in the world of fantastic cinema.
Despite the fact that the presence of female creators in the industry is becoming more and more notorious and brilliant, it is still very much a minority and this is demonstrated by statistics that place women at a clear disadvantage.
By way of example, in the Sitges official section over the last ten years only 6% of the feature films have been directed by women (a figure that rises to 10% in co-direction).
WomanInFan was created with the aim of helping to improve this situation through three main lines of work:
- Shedding light on the historical memory of all those women who have contributed in one way or another to the history of fantastic cinema. In this sense, the creation of an online documentary collection of memorabilia is initiated.
- Raising awareness of female talent with regard to the fantastic as another language. Three schoolarships will be awarded, thanks to the support of Vertix, to three filmmakers with no background in fantasy but with an initial outstanding cinematographic career.
- Promoting the visibility of women filmmakers in genre cinema so that the country’s audiovisual industry entrusts this type of project to future female producers, directors and screenwriters. The Sitges Festival is therefore extending its functions to produce an annual short film written and directed by women as part of an open call for entries.
Sitges 2021’s lineup will also feature new films directed by female filmmakers like Censor by British filmmaker Prano Bailey-Bond; The Blazing World, by debutant Carlson Young; the Canadian Amelia Moses with Bloodthirsty or the documentary Alien on Stage, by Lucy Harvey.
You can check out here the complete preview of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia programme.
