The oldest and most prestigious genre film festival on the planet, the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival returned for its 49th edition this year, selecting gems from the best horror, sci-fi, thriller and action films that the world had to offer in 2016 and bringing them to the resort town of Sitges in Catalonia, a half an hour drive down the Mediterranean coast from Barcelona.

It was a pleasure to return to the festival this year, following a stint on the Focus Asia and Anima’t juries in 2015, finding myself once again among some of the most ardent film fans on the planet. Sitges is an easy festival to get swept up by, set in an idyllic Mediterranean town filled with cobbled, winding streets and endless options for great seafood and tapas. The only downer was the unusually inclement weather, as sheets of rain doused the attendees for most of the week. Longtime festival veterans had never experienced such a cold and wet festival, yet even the poor weather did little to dampen everybody’s spirits. 

In addition to the annual zombie walk, many people could be spotted in Star Trek costumes around town, as the festival staged a special Star Trek theme this year. As usual, festivalgoers could mingle with a host of international film stars, including Christopher Walken, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Campbell, Barbara Crampton and Max Von Sydow, as well as major filmmakers such as Paul Schrader, Dante Lam and Rob Zombie.

 

Ever a top destination for Korean film fans, Sitges this year welcomed no less than 14 Korean films this year, many of which were among the most anticipated films of the year’s lineup. All three of the Korean titles that bowed at Cannes made an appearance, which included PARK Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden, NA Hong-jin’s THE WAILING and YEON Sang-ho’s TRAIN TO BUSAN. They also featured in the main competition section, along with YEON’s Seoul Station and KIM Sang-chan’s Karaoke Crazies.

Outside of the competition section, Sitges welcomed another great of Korean cinema, with KIM Jee-woon’s The Age of Shadows, playing alongside recent commercial titles such as IM Sang-soo’s Intimate Enemies, PARK Hoon-jung’s The Tiger, KIM Seong-hun’s Tunnel, LEE Hae-young’s The Silenced and the omnibus Horror Stories III. KIM Ji-hyeon’s Throttled screened in Anima’t Shorts and finally, two earlier works, NA Hong-jin’s The Chaser and KIM Jee-woon’s The Good, The Bad, And The Weird, both from 2008, were projected on the Brigadoon screen.

This year I was in town as the writer and producer of a project taking part in the festival’s 2nd Pitchbox, a pitching market event aimed at genre films. Director LEE Sang-woo and I were invited to the festival with Cannibal Granny. We weren’t the only guests from Korea in town, as BiFan sent a delegation which including festival director CHOI Yong-bae, one of the jurors for the Focus Asia and Anima’t sections, and NAFF managing director Thomas NAM, one of the jurors for the Pitchbox awards, which included a prize that invited a project to next year’s edition of NAFF.

On the filmmaker side, LEE Hae-young was in town for a few days with his Seven Chances selection, the Japanese Occupation Era drama-thriller The Silenced, and the hit disaster drama Tunnel was supported by director KIM Seong-hun, whose last film A Hard Day screened at Sitges in 2014, producer JANG Won-seok and superstar BAE Doo-na, who was able to attend after recently completing production on the second season of Netflix series Sense8 with the Wachowskis. Each time BAE appeared in the lobby or garden of the Melia Hotel, ground zero for the festival, fans hounded her for autographs.

It’s not just the Sitges programmers who are keen on Korean cinema, as Korean films were often top picks among attendees, with festival revellers particularly keen to catch of much-buzzed titles such as TRAIN TO BUSAN and The Handmaiden and keen to take a chance on lesser known films such as The Silenced. 

Beyond the program, the enthusiasm for Korean content could be felt all around the festival. One of the Pitchbox selections, a genre project from Europe, highlighted KIM Jee-woon’s I Saw The Devil (2010) and JANG Cheol-soo’s Bedevilled (2010) as inspirations during their presentation. In the shelves of the FNAC tent outside of the main venue, Korean DVDs and Blu-rays were abundant.

 

The awards ceremony was a field day for Korean films, with five awards bestowed to a trio films from the Far East nation. All of this year’s prizewinners from Korea debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, each adding to significant awards bounties already earned throughout the year.

The much-hyped Sundance indie Swiss Army Man picked up the festival’s top prize in the Official Fantàstic Selection, but YEON Sang-ho’s TRAIN TO BUSAN drove off with the Best Director Award as well as the Award for Best Special Effects, which went to JUNG Hwang-su. Also in the main competition, NA Hong-jin’s THE WAILING picked up the Award for Best Cinematography for lenser HONG Kyeong-pyo and PARK Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden was given the Grand Audience Award. 

In the Focus Àsia section, THE WAILING was also triumphant, making it the fifth Korean film to take the prize in just the last six years, following Veteran (2015), MAD SAD BAD (2014), New World (2013) and The Unjust (2010). NA previously won the same prize in 2008 for The Chaser.

Sitges organizers are now busy plotting their landmark 50th anniversary and while details of next year’s event won’t be known for some time, the one thing Sitges visitors can count on in October 2017 is a fresh batch of the latest and greatest from the Korean peninsula.