After 10 intense days of blood running in torrents, psychopaths, dystopian futures, strange creatures and many other mysteries, the Sitges Festival reaches the end of its 2022 edition without a clear favorite to win the award for best film. One day after the winners were known, things are very close, because in the contest directed by Ángel Sala, 32 films from the official competition section have been screened, and there have been all kinds of stories. Higher quality cinema and other more controversial titles that hope to find a place in the list of winners.
Irati is the film that the public liked the most. A story full of legends that the Basque director Paul Urkijo has set in the early Middle Ages and set in the rivers, caves and valleys of the Basque Country in the 8th century among women with mermaid feet, huge snakes and other pagan rites, which the young director met in his childhood. Urkijo is something of a rare bird at a festival where cinema made by women has dominated.
For example, Huesera, by the Mexican Michelle Garza Cervera, has been widely applauded, which starts from the desire of Valeria (magnificent Natalia Solián) and her partner (Alfonso Dosal) to have a baby, a more than usual idea, but in this case opens the door to a monstrous being who embodies the “dark truths” that terrify the protagonist, according to the director. Crunching of bones, rituals, beings that crawl on the ground and a hidden sexuality go hand in hand in a story not suitable for pregnant women that reveals the talent of a director whose steps must be followed.
Another director, the Lithuanian Kristina Buozyte, co-directs with the French Bruno Samper Vesper, a futuristic fairy tale that paints a “dark green” dystopian world in which the rich are very rich and the poor are very poor and where getting seeds is guaranteed bread, even if they only last one harvest.
Ego (Hatching), by the Finnish Hanna Bergholm, which delves into the murky relationship between a mother and her daughter, completes the quartet of the most acclaimed films in the competition.
Also from Northern Europe, in this case from Sweden comes the disturbing Speak no Evil whose director, Christian Taddrup, could be rewarded with the award for best direction. An award that Quentin Dupieux can take from him. The Frenchman, much loved at this festival for his surreal premises and his absurd humor, has submitted two films to the competition in the official section: Fumer fait tousser and Incroyable mais vrai. Will you leave empty handed?
Nor is it ruled out that the jury, which will announce its verdict tomorrow, will focus on the work of Aaron Moorhead and Justoin Benson, who co-direct the unclassifiable Something in the dirt, and Alfredo Vázquez, who signs the animated film Unicorn Wars, quite an anti-war argument.
In this very feminine Sitges, the actresses have shone more than the actors and there are several candidates to win the award for best female performance: Silvia Abascal, for her role in Asombrosa Elisa; Emma Mackey, who plays Emily Brontë alive in Emily; Mia Goth, protagonist of Pearl; Siri Solalinna, for her role in Ego (Hatching) or Natalia Solián, who suffers a terrifying pregnancy in Huesera.
The French Eva Green and the Filipino Chai Fonacier are two other candidates for their work in Nocebo, by the Irishman Lorcan Finnegan, which landed today as the main course of the last day of the competition.
In the male chapter they have highlighted Romain Duris, the director who is harassed by zombies during a shoot in (Corten!); Choi Guyhwa, who brings to life the monster from the bloody Project Wolf Hunting; Moorhead and Benson, who in addition to directing also star in Something in the dirt and the Spanish actor Zorion Eguileor for his work in Viejos, by Raúl Cerezo and Fernando Gonzáles Gómez.
