Since its premiere last Saturday at the Sitges festival, The ugly stepsister was immediately positioned as one of the favorites to enter the list of winners of the 58th edition. And so it has been. Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt’s debut feature, a twisted, feminist body horror version of the classic Cinderella tale, has won best film. It is the fourth time that a director has won in this competition after Surveillance, the Jennifer Lynch (2008), The invitationby Karyn Kusama (2015) and The devil’s bath (2024), by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.
Read also
The film, which is now available in theaters, is a very dark and disturbing period comedy about aesthetic pressure and the monsters it creates, following in the wake of the shocking The substanceby the French Coralie Fargeat. Elvira (impressive Lea Myren) is an unattractive young woman who becomes the stepsister of the beautiful Agnes. She is in love with the prince of Swedland, who turns out to be a conceited imbecile, and she reads his sexist poems enthralled, in the style of “Beautiful virgin, how long have I been waiting for you!” With the clear intention that the royal notice her, Elvira will submit, with the help of her selfish mother, to the torture of very primitive cosmetic surgery processes. His smile, his eyes and a slimmer body after swallowing a tapeworm egg will catch the prince’s attention. But the young woman will pay a very high price.
Read also
The jury of the official section, made up of Peter Chan, Hernan Findling, Mary Harron, Laura Pedro and Jovanka Vuckovic, has praised The ugly stepsister for “its originality in reinventing a classic story”, as they announced at a press conference this afternoon accompanied by the director of the contest, Ángel Sala, and the director of the foundation, Mònica Garcia, who pointed out that the contest has grown by 12% compared to last year. Findling highlighted that they came to an agreement “relatively quickly” on the film, and stressed that the level of this year’s competing titles has been “very good.”
Elvira will undergo a very primitive and painful surgery
The special jury prize has been ex aequo to The furiousdet hongit of Kenyan Tandaki, the Obsessionby the American Curry Baker. The first is a thriller that narrates the frantic attempt of a man, an expert in martial arts, to recover his daughter, who has been kidnapped by a child trafficking network. On the other hand, Obsession, which has also won the audience award, is a powerful metaphor about the reification of romantic relationships that focuses on a boy’s obsession with his platonic love.
Read also
The South Korean Park Chan-wook, much admired for the fantasy competition, has won best director for transferring it to the big screen No other choicebased on the novel The Ax by Donald E. Westlake. In it, a man loses his job and decides to devise a macabre plan to eliminate his competition. A black satire wrapped in a spiral of violence that competed at the Venice festival and will hit Spanish cinemas in March.
Still from ‘No other choice’
In the acting categories, the Australian Rose Byrne has once again repeated in Sitges the feat she achieved at the Berlin festival as best actress for her dedicated composition of a therapist and mother on the edge – her daughter is sick, her husband is absent and the house is collapsing – in If I could, I would kick youa highly praised performance that will surely place her among the five finalists for the Oscar. His compatriot Joel Edgerton and the young children’s cast of The Plague, a psychological drama about a boy who suffers bullying at a men’s water polo camp, share the award for best actor.
Best performers
Rose Byrne wins best actress for Her Mother on the Limit in ‘If I Could, I’d Kick You,’ and the male cast of ‘The Plague’ wins the best actor category
The bizarre story created and directed by the Thai Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke in A useful ghostwhich tells how a recently widowed man discovers that his wife’s spirit has been reincarnated in a vacuum cleaner. The Argentina The Virgin of Tosqueradirected by Laura Casabé, has won the award for best photography for capturing the supernatural terror of a production based on several stories by the writer Mariana Enríquez.
Read also
Composers Yasutaka Nakata and Shohei Amimori have seen awards for their work in the music of Exit 8a disturbing proposition about a man trapped in a loop in a subway station. And the Canadian Honey bunchwhich crudely explores the limits of love in a 1970s sanatorium, took home the award for best makeup effects. The critics’ awards have awarded the José Luis Guarner for best film in the official fantasy section ‘ex aequo’ to the moving Chuck’s lifeby Mike Flanagan, and Reflection on a dead diamondby Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. The Citizen Kane Award for New Director goes to Boonbunchachoke for The useful ghostand the best short film for The man that I wave atthe Ben S. Hyland.
Read also
From the Noves visions section, the best film is shared Lesbian space princess y The true Beauty of being bitten. Of Blood window has won Don’t leave the children alone and as best film Órbita, the Italian The forbidden city. Anima’t has also rated Lesbian space princess as best animated film for the story of a space princess who is forced to abandon her comfortable life and embark on a galactic quest to save her bounty hunter ex-girlfriend.
André Itamara Vila Neto é um blogueiro apaixonado por guias de viagem e criador do Road Trips for the Rockstars . Apaixonado por explorar tesouros escondidos e rotas cênicas ao redor do mundo, André compartilha guias de viagem detalhados, dicas e experiências reais para inspirar outros aventureiros a pegar a estrada com confiança. Seja planejando a viagem perfeita ou descobrindo tesouros locais, a missão de André é tornar cada jornada inesquecível.
📧 E-mail: andreitamaravilaneto@gmail.com 🌍 Site: roadtripsfortherockstars.com 📱 Contato WhatsApp: +55 44 99822-5750