The Festival
Our raison d’etre. The jam in our doughnut. The cosmic glue that holds together so many memories of good times with good friends.
THE SITGES FILM FESTIVAL
We began this site for the very purpose of providing a home for our festival experiences. Thanks to Santiago (The Ocho), the Godfather of Sitges, we’ve been in attendance since 2003, during which time we’ve cheered and booed at over a hundred films, the majority of which we wouldn’t have seen had we chosen to stick to cinema’s more mainstream offerings.
Born in 1968 as the 1st International Week of Fantasy and Horror Movies, the now named Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia has grown to become the number one fantasy film festival in the world and serves as an essential rendezvous for movie lovers and industry honchos alike.
The Mediterranean town of Sitges provides a perfect backdrop to the festival while offering plenty to pass the time between films. The main festival programme typically consists of Nine Official Sections – Fantastic Official, New Visions, Gran Angular, Sessions Golfes, Orient Express, Anima’t, Retrospective, Mondo Macabro, and Seven Chances – each section attracting a diverse array of films from around the world.
The Auditori at the Hotel Melia is the festival’s main theatre. With an impressive 1,384 seating capacity and fantastic audio and visual facilities it’s the natural choice for the festival’s opening and closing ceremonies. The Melia is also home to the event offices and press rooms making it the festival’s nerve centre and celebrity central. However, for all its importance to the business side of the festival, the Melia remains refreshingly accessible to the public.
In contrast, The Cine El Retiro (600 seats) and Cine Prado (450 seats) provide a more intimate film going experience, reflecting the character of the town and more akin to the non-business side of the festival. Here visual and audio quality can be sacrificed (although still good) for good old fashioned atmosphere.
The festival though is so much more than the sum of its parts and an experience that can only truly be appreciated first hand. Until such time as you get the chance to create your own Sitges memories, feel free to share a few of ours.
CS
