Sitges FanPitch: ‘Idaho Winter,’ ‘Malamuerte,’ ‘This Thing,’ Loneliness, Women’s Empowerment, and Gruesome Takes on the Zeitgeist

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent QuarXX’s “This Thing Inside of Me,” Caye Casas’ “Malamuerte” and maybe the biggest buzz title in the whole selection, Sean Wainsteim’s “Idaho Winter,” a multi-media mashup, feature in a robust, variegated lineup at Sitges FanPitch, which is quickly establishing itself as a key early fall global genre project platform drawing on titles from not only Spain but Europe, Latin and North America and Asia. Unspooling Oct.

6-7, the FanPitch ranks as one industry centrepiece at the Sitges, International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, a hallowed genre fest Mecca and one of the most important in Europe. Projects range widely from multiple psychological thrillers, often driving deep into protagonists’ deep trauma, to black horror-comedy, stylish scarefests, near-future allegories, the allegedly true-event paranormal, and vampire actioners.

One title, “Idaho Winter,” is billed as “YA meta-fiction.” Another, fantastical series “The Lost Gods of Memphis,” surely the biggest budgeted of all projects at this year’s FanPitch, is set between 1222 B.C. and the present day and billed as “modern mythological neo-Noir set along Mississippi River.” “This year’s FanPitch is perhaps the harvest with the greatest variety of subgenres: Science fiction, satanic sects, black comedy… it is difficult to find a common denominator,” said Mónica García Massagué, Sitges Festival general manager.

Yet trends, both artistic and industrial, emerge. “Perhaps the most obvious is the use of fantasy to try to explain the loneliness of certain characters.

In several projects, the hero witnesses something extraordinary or terrible, which is not understood by society. The story focuses on the struggle to accept