Seven days have already flown by since the 59th edition kicked off, and there are still four days left to round off the festivities.
American director Robert Eggers received the Time Machine Award for his brief but virtuoso career dedicated to genre. Casey Affleck also visited the Meliá Auditorium to present his new film as both director and screenwriter: the gothic tale Company.
A renovator of contemporary fantastic cinema through mythological language and the great archetypes of horror, Robert Eggers has forged an inimitable filmography with just four films. If his chilling The Witch -one of this year’s top Sitges Classics- managed to send shivers down our spines with a simple game of shot and reverse shot where a girl’s little brother vanished in the blink of an eye, films like The Lighthouse or The Northman confirm the talent of a genius with a virtuoso mise-en-scène and an exquisite sense of eerie atmospheres.
Starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Eggers’ debut feature returns to Sitges -eleven years after opening the 2015 edition- to honor the career of this great rising star of contemporary Hollywood. Grateful and holding the Time Machine Award in his hands, he said, «The Witch is the film that changed my life» and addressed the audience, celebrating their constant enthusiasm. Next, a clip from Werwulf -his new film, set to premiere next year- was screened, and he shared a brief conversation with our Artistic Director, Ángel Sala. The two of them discussed topics such as madness, folk horror, women’s participation in genre cinema, and the multiple references included in the Nosferatu remake that Eggers directed in 2024, which earned four Oscar nominations.
