La Morsure (Bitten) wins at Sitges

At the 2023 Sitges Film Festival (Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya) in Spain I served on the jury for the Méliès d’argent award, along with fellow jurors Matthew Turner (journalist, author and podcaster) and Alexandra West (film critic, author and podcaster).

It was a long process to watch and deliberate over such a vibrant range of films from European filmmakers, but in the end we decided upon our winners:

The Méliès d’argent award for best feature film: La Morsure (Bitten) written and directed by Romain de Saint-Blanquat, which is his feature film debut.

Méliès d’argent award for best short film: Cultes, written and directed by David Padilla, which is his debut short film.

I’ve written in more depth about my experiences in two Substack posts: Sitges 2023 (written during the festival) and European Fantastique, written today.

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I was also ecstatic that Irish film, LOLA, co-written by Andrew Legge and Angeli Macfarlane, and directed by Legge won the Méliès d’or for best fantastic film released in Europe in 2022. Last year I was on the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival  Méliès d’argent jury (with Giles Edwards and Loris Curci), and we gave the Méliès d’argent to LOLA, thus qualifying it for consideration for the d’or. It’s the first time an Irish film has won the Méliès d’or. Congratulations to the team!