Sitges Film Festival

Inaugurated in 1968 as the world's first film festival dedicated to the fantastic genre – fantasy, horror, sci-fi and cult – today the Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya (aka Sitges Film Festival) has become Catalonia's biggest celebration of the moving image. The picturesque seaside town of Sitges, which is some 30 minutes down the coast from Barcelona, hosts hundreds of films from around the globe, providing movie fans with around ten days of screenings of all types, from animation to rom-com via slasher and gangster. The festival has also adapted to the times, with an ever-growing section dedicated to TV series.

This year's inaugural film, on in the auditorium of the Hotel Melià, is 'In the Tall Grass', an adaptation of a story that horror master Stephen King published in collaboration with his son Joe Hill in two installments in Esquire magazine in 2012. It's directed by Vincenzo Natali – who also directed films such as 'Cube' and 'Cypher' – and stars Patrick Wilson.

In this edition of the festival, which pays tribute to 'Mad Max' on the 40th anniversary of its premiere, you'll be able to see the best international premieres of fantasy and horror films such as 'Ready or Not', directed by Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, about a wedding night turned into a violent game; 'Color Out of Space', from director Richard Stanley, based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft and starring Nicolas Cage; and '4x4', a suffocating thriller about a thief trapped inside a van, directed by Argentina's Mariano Cohn.