SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Oct. 9 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Eduardo Noriega will collect the Calavera Island Honor Award in recognition of his career during the seventh edition of the Canary Islands Ciudad de La Laguna Calavera Island Fantastic Film Festival, which will take place from November 10 to 19.
The actor from Santander was part of the cast of Alejandro Amenábar’s debut film ‘Tesis’ (1996) and starred alongside Penélope Cruz in his second feature film, the psychological thriller ‘Abre los ojos’ (1997), which can be seen this year on Skull Island. For this performance he received his first Goya Award nomination for best leading actor.
The Canarian Mateo Gil, co-writer of both Amenábar films, also featured Noriega in ‘Nobody knows anyone’ (2000), his directorial debut, and in the western ‘Blackthorn’. He has filmed ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ (2001) under the direction of Guillermo del Toro; Kim Ji-woon’s ‘The Last Stand’ (2013), alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger; by Christophe Gans, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (2014); and by Álex de la Iglesia, ‘Perfect strangers’ (2017). Among his upcoming projects is the thriller ‘In the Fire’, directed by Conor Allyn, and the Prime Video series ‘Red Queen’.
The name of Eduardo Noriega thus joins that of Richard Dreyfuss, who will also receive an honorary award this year, and that of Sam J. Jones (‘Flash Gordon’), who will collect the Legend of the Fantastic Skull Island Award in Tenerife.
This announcement has been made known within the framework of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival, which each year hosts the presentation of Calavera Island with great enthusiasm on the part of the general public and attending professionals.
The tribute to the fantastic Spaniard will continue on Isla Calavera 2023 with a special event dedicated to the horror classic ‘Panic on the Trans-Siberian’, which will feature the participation of actress Silvia Tortosa and filmmaker and historian Víctor Matellano in a discussion after the screening in which will remember the director Eugenio Martín, who died last January at the age of 97.
On the other hand, the Fantastic Dissemination Award will go this year to Gloria Fernández and Enrique Garcelán, specialists in Asian cinema, critics and disseminators, festival programmers and co-directors of CineAsia, an initiative that emerged in 2004 with the aim of promoting knowledge of oriental cinematography.
Precisely Gloria Garcelán, who is part of the selection committee of the Sitges Festival, presented the Calavera Island event in Sitges, which was also attended by Mònica Garcia i Massagué, director of the Sitges Foundation, and Ángel Sala, artistic director of the festival.
FEATURE FILMS IN COMPETITION
To the first titles confirmed in the Official Competition Section at Calavera Island 2023, ‘Blood by Brad Anderson’, ‘Acide’ by Just Philippot, and the Spanish productions ‘Os reviento’ (Kike Narcea), ‘When the masters sleep’ (Santiago Alvarado) and ‘The Dining Table’ (Caye Casas), four other notable feature films are added.
The rural and intimate terror of ‘The Wait’, directed by F. Javier Gutiérrez with Víctor Clavijo, Ruth Díaz and Pedro Casablanc, can be seen on Calavera Island after celebrating its world premiere in Sitges. Set in the Andalusian mountains, it is the story of Eladio, a farm guard whose life collapses after accepting a bribe from a hunter, testing his sanity.
Written and directed by Olivia West Lloyd, Skull Island presents the disturbing thriller ‘Somewhere Quiet’, about a woman who after suffering a traumatic kidnapping tries to regain normality in her life. However, a getaway to her husband’s family’s quiet farm in the middle of nature will not help her situation at all.
Additionally, the action-packed Korean thriller ‘The Childe’, written and directed by Park Hoon-jung, screenwriter of the acclaimed ‘I Met the Devil’ (2010), will be screened. It centers on a young Filipino boxer who is trying to get money for the treatment of his sick mother, when one day his unknown father appears and asks him to go visit him in Korea.
Within science fiction, the program includes the film ‘UFO Sweden’, about a rebellious teenager who lives in a foster home and suspects that her father has been kidnapped by aliens. This is the new feature film from the Swedish filmmaker collective Crazy Pictures, known for its popular shorts with millions of views on YouTube.
Vouchers and individual tickets for the Calavera Island Festival screenings will soon go on sale, whose complete program will include more titles and parallel activities.
