Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival wraps and Japan picks up three awards

by Chris MaGee

The 43rd annual Sitges Film Festival wrapped up this past weekend after bringing a slew of great new genre films to the small Catalonian seaside city. Awards were handed out at the fest on Sunday and films from Japan picked up three! Takashi Miike's blockbuster remake of Eiichi Kudo's 1963 jidai-geki film "13 Assassins" (above) not only picked up Sitges' Grand Audience Award, but its gritty period look was honoured with an award for Best Art Direction for veteran production designer and art director Yuji Hayashida. Along with the wins for "13 Assassins" the festival jury honoured Sion Sono's latest film "Cold Fish" with the Casa Asia Award.

Congratulations to Miike, Sono and Hayashida! And our thanks to Tokyograph for this welcome bit of news.