Sitges Film Festival to honor director Peter Chan, producer Gale Anne Hurd, and actor Dominique Pinon

The Sitges Film Festival, Catalonia's leading international terror and fantasy event, will honor Hong Kong director Peter Chan, US producer Gale Anne Hurd, French actor Dominique Pinon, and Mexican director Hugo Stiglitz.

Organizers announced the award recipients on Wednesday during the presentation of the film festival, which will start on October 9 and run until October 19.

Chan will receive the Honorific Award for his "incredible" career trajectory in Asia, while Gale Anne Hurd will receive the WomanInFan prize for being an important female Hollywood producer in movies such as Terminator by James Cameron, Aliens, Witch Hunt, and Armageddon. 

Anne Hurd "has been heavily involved in fantasy cinema and has been a role model for many women, as she has had the strength to successfully enter Hollywood's industry," Àngel Sala, artistic director of the film festival, told Catalan News.

Pinon will be honored for his career with the Méliès Career award, and Stiflitz with the Nosferatu prize.

'Alpha'

French director Julia Ducournau's latest movie, Alpha, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. A few weeks after its opening night in Sitges, it will be released in cinemas across Spain.

The story narrates the reflection of a woman's body during adolescence. The main character is a very young woman who also talks about her family relations. The movie discusses the anxiety of being young in a dystopian society marked by a lethal virus.

"It is an imaginary virus, but it reminds us of many viruses we have lived with," Àngel Sala said.

Ducournau has previously participated in the Sitges Film Festival with her movie Grave. With 'Alpha' being the opening movie of the 2025 edition, the film festival will open "for the third time" with a movie directed by a woman after Mary Harron's 'American Psycho' and Ana Lily Amirpour's 'Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon.'

Harron, Peter Chan, Laura Pedro, Hernan Findling, and Jovanka Vuckovic will be the judges at the film festival.

First movies announced

This year's festival will be "as always, a way of creating a plot out of the different important trends in the contemporary fantasy world," Àngel told this media outlet. "A fantasy industry with a frenetic production across the globe, from the United States to Asia, including the new wave of Japanese cinema," he added.

In addition to Alpha, festival-goers will also get to watch Dylan Southern's The Thing With Feathers, Isaiah Saxon's The Legend of Ochi, and Mike Flanagan's The Life of Chuck. This year, animation will have an important role with movies such as 'Decorado' by Alberto Vázquez, 'Arco' by Ugo Bienvenu, 'Lesbian Space Princess' by Emma Hough and Leela Varghese.

One of the missing pieces from the festival's schedule will be female Catalan fantasy directors, as "it has not been a great moment for fantasy cinema across Catalonia," Àngel said, as the sector is "focused on other cinema genres."

"There are other Catalan movies being directed by female directors, such as Carla Simón, great movies that are taking part in international festivals, but we are not seeing terror and fantasy films as when 'The Orphanage' or 'Rec' were produced back in the early 2000s."

Eduardo Casanova's Angustia (Anxiety) is one of the Spanish movies scheduled for this year's edition of the terror and fantasy film festival.

Sitges Film Festival tickets to go on sale on July 30.

Check the list of all the movies below:

 

Movies

• A Useful Ghost – Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke (2025) 
• ALL YOU NEED IS KILL – Kenichiro Akimoto (2025) 
• Alpha – Julia Ducournau (2025) 
• Another World – Tommy Kai Chung Ng (2025) 
• Arco – Ugo Bienvenu (2025) 
• ChaO – Yasuhiro Aoki (2025) 
• Dead Lover – Grace Glowicki (2025) 
• Deathstalker – Steven Kostanski (2025) 
• Decorado – Alberto Vázquez (2025) 
• Dolly – Rod Blackhurst (2025) 
• Eye for an Eye – Colin Tilley (2025) 
• Exit 8 – Genki Kawamura (2025) 
• Fucktoys – Annapurna Sriram (2025) 
• Gaua – Paul Urkijo (2025) 
• Good Boy – Ben Leonberg (2025) 
• Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters – Benjamin Field (2025) 
• Heart of Darkness – Rogério Nunes (2025) 
• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You – Mary Bronstein (2025) 
• La hermanastra fea – Emilie Blichfeldt (2025) 
• La virgen de la tosquera – Laura Casabé (2025) 
• Lesbian Space Princess – Emma Hough & Leela Varghese (2025) 
• Luger – Bruno Martín (2025) 
• Mermaid – Tyler Cornack (2025) 
• Mother’s Baby – Johanna Moder (2025) 
• New Group – Yuta Shimotsu (2025) 
• Orang Ikan – Mike Wiluan (2024) 
• Redux Redux – Kevin McManus & Matthew McManus (2025) 
• Silencio – Eduardo Casanova (2025) 
• Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror – Linus O’Brien (2025) 
• The Curse – Kenichi Ugana (2025) 
• The Great History of Western Philosophy – Aria Covamonas (2025) 
• The Home – James DeMonaco (2025) 
• The Legend of Ochi – Isaiah Saxon (2025) 
• The Thing with Feathers – Dylan Southern (2025) 
• Tornado – John Maclean (2025) 
• Touch Me – Addison Heimann (2025) 

 

 Historical movies

• Angel’s Egg – Mamoru Oshii (1985) 
• Atolladero – Óscar Aibar (1995) 
• Jigoku – Nobuo Nakagawa (1960) 
• Lo spettro – Riccardo Freda (1963) 
• Memoria – Francisco Macián (1976) 
• Re-Animator – Stuart Gordon (1985) 
• Vera, un cuento cruel – Josefina Molina (1973) 
• Willy, el gorrión – József Gémes (1989) 

 

Retrospective Bruno  Bozzetto 

Feature Films:

• Allegro non troppo – Bruno Bozzetto (1976) 
• The SuperVips – Bruno Bozzetto (1968) 

 

Shorts:

• Alfa Omega – Bruno Bozzetto (1962) 
• Baeus – Bruno Bozzetto (1987) 
• Big Bang – Bruno Bozzetto (1967) 
• Cavallette – Bruno Bozzetto (1990) 
• Dancing – Bruno Bozzetto (1991) 
• Ego – Bruno Bozzetto (1969) 
• Opera – Bruno Bozzetto (1973) 
• Piscina (La) – Bruno Bozzetto (1977) 
• Point of View – Bruno Bozzetto (1998) 
• Rapsodeus – Bruno Bozzetto (2011) 
• Self Service – Bruno Bozzetto (1974) 
• Tapum! La storia delle armi – Bruno Bozzetto (1958) 

 

Brigadoon 

• Death Cycle – Gabriel Carrer (2025) 
• Occupy Cannes – Lily Hayes Kaufman (2025) 
• Masters of the Grind – Jason Rutherford (2025) 
• Test Screening – Clark Baker (2025) 
• The Devil’s Teardrop – Gonzalo Otero (2025) 
• Thinestra – Nathan Hertz (2025)