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The 41st edition will be dedicated to 2001: A Space Odyssey
17/07/2008
The 41st edition, to be held from October 2nd to the 12th, will be dedicated to the 40th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Stanley Kubrick, and will be attended by, among others, actors Gary Lockwood and Keir Dullea, special effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull and Jan Harlan, executive producer and Kubrick’s assistant.

Tributes to science fiction treasures
17/07/2008
The Festival will offer a reflective retrospective on the role of science fiction in the history of contemporary cinema, with outstanding movies like Planet of the Apes, Forbidden Planet, Logan’s Run, Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, among others. For many moviegoers it will be an excellent opportunity to see the best copies available of these films for the first time on the big screen. Sitges 08’s EUROPA IMAGINÀRIA will also revolve around the best European science fiction cinema with movies like Barbarella, Solaris and The Man Who Fell to Earth.

The 75th Anniversary of King Kong
17/07/2008
Through a series of screenings and debates, the Festival will be paying tribute to the 75th anniversary of King Kong, the Festival’s image. We will be able to enjoy the remastered copy of King Kong from 1933 and also the documentary produced by Peter Jackson shooting of the original movie RKO Production 601: The Making of ‘Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World’.

Everyday and purely real horror movies
17/07/2008
Sitges 08’s OFICIAL FANTÀSTIC SELECTION will bring together tendencies from the current genre production, emphasizing everyday, purely real horror movies. Outstanding films like: Vinyan, by Fabrice Du Welz, one of the most promising young genre directors who already excelled with Calvaire; Martyrs, by Pascal Laugier, that has become the shocker of the year, considered by many the most extreme movie ever made; Surveillance, a contemporary American Gothic by Jennifer Chambers Lynch, David Lynch’s daughter; Let the Right One in, a Swedish film by Tomas Alfredson that has caused a huge sensation at many festivals around the world; Eden Lake, a British Funny Games by James Watkins; La possibilité d'une île, where Michel Houellebecq adapts his own novel; and Tokyo!, a fantasy fable directed three ways by genre gurus Bong Joon-ho, Léos Carax and Michel Gondry. There will also be outstanding Asian films like...

Famous proposals
17/07/2008
In the out-of-competition Oficial Fantàstic Selection there will be famous proposals like Blindness, the screen version of the José Saramago novel by Fernando Meirelles; JCVD, the faux Jean-Claude Van Damme biopic directed by Mabrouk El Mechri; Synecdoche, New York, from the always unclassifiable Charlie Kaufman; Repo! The Genetic Opera, a rock opera directed by Darren Lynn Bousman with a futuristic horror film tone that could become this year’s cult movie; and...

Spanish production big titles
17/07/2008
Sitges 08 will leave plenty of room for the most recent Spanish and Catalan productions with films like Sexy Killer, by Miguel Martí, with a tribute to 80’s youth horror movies; Transsiberian, by Brad Anderson, presenting a dark, neo-Gothic thriller that takes place in the mythic; Santos, where director Nicolás López tells the story of the simple life of a comic creator, despite concealing his facet a superhero; and Soy un pelele, by debut director Hernán Migoya. All Catalan produced films will be a part of the CATALAN FOCUS selection.

Gushing blood at midnight
17/07/2008
The festival’s most extreme category, MIDNIGHT X-TREME will continue to base its subject matter on the purest and harshest horror movies, with the most bloodcurdling film in recent years as its main attraction: Philosophy of a Knife, by Andrey Iskanov, an in-depth account of the genetic experiments carried out by the Japanese in the Second World War. During the Festival’s long nights...

Sections and activities with their own personality
17/07/2008

Monty Python, guests of honour at Méliès d’Or
17/07/2008
This year Sitges will be stage for the Méliès d’Or award organized by the EFFFF (European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals) for the best European fantasy film from the 2006-2007 edition. Attending the act will be several guests of honour: some of the members of Monty Python, an important exponent of European fantasy film given their imaginary world that is highly influenced by pioneers like Georges Méliès himself.