Carlota Pereda opens Sitges with thriller Found Alive, the first Spanish woman to do so

Opening night in Sitges

Carlota Pereda opened the 59th Sitges Festival Internacional de Cine Fantástico de Catalunya on Thursday, 8 October, with Found Alive. The festival was founded in 1968, and the first woman to open it was Mary Harron, with American Psycho in 2000. Pereda is the fourth woman to open the festival, after Harron, Ana Lily Amirpour and Julia Ducournau. Found Alive also competes for the best film prize in the official section.

The film is an English-language thriller shot in Utah and based on Carla Norton's novel The Edge of Normal, which has not been published in Spanish. Chloë Grace Moretz plays Reeve LeClaire, who was kidnapped as a teenager and held in a basement. Ten years after her escape, she agrees to help another survivor who has just been rescued. Rupert Friend plays her psychiatrist. Lori Evans Taylor wrote the screenplay, and the Spanish company Nostromo is among the producers.

A career built on genre

Pereda, born in Madrid and whose real surname is Martínez-Pereda, worked for years as a screenwriter and director on television series before turning to features. Her short Cerdita won the Goya for best fiction short film in 2019. Its feature version premiered at Sitges in 2022, where it won the Méliès d'Or for best European fantastic feature. Her next film, La ermita, premiered at the festival in 2023. In 2024 she sat on the official section jury, which gave its top prize to El baño del diablo.

Financing and female talent

At the press conference, Pereda said it was 'doubly complicated' for a woman to secure financing for a genre film in Spain. She asked producers to back female talent and try to get their projects made, and she highlighted projects in the festival's WomanInFan initiative. In an interview with La Vanguardia, she said Spain has talent and projects but lacks the courage to back them, and that the problem is not only with producers.

Abroad we see many more women making genre cinema.

Pereda said she had been the first in many things and still hopes the list keeps growing. In an interview with El Periódico she said:

I hope many more come after.

The opening ceremony

The gala paid tribute to Julio Fernández, founder of Filmax, who died in November 2025. His daughters, Laura and Sandra Fernández, accepted the homage. Festival director Ángel Sala and foundation director Mònica Garcia described his link to Sitges, where he brought titles such as Darkness and Rec, and called him visionary. David Gregory, director and CEO of Severin Films, received the industry award. The short Homing, by Lizzie Atherton and Hansel Rodrigues, was also screened. Sala and Garcia said the edition is special because it falls close to the festival's 60th anniversary, and they pointed to guests including Peter Jackson and a strong emphasis on female talent.

Reception and what comes next

Pereda said the Sitges invitation was an honor and that the festival had asked to include her in its history. On the audience reaction, she said:

I would like the audience to embrace and celebrate the film, because in the end we make films for them. But it is already made, and there is nothing more I can do.

Found Alive is in competition for the best film award in the official section. Pereda is also working on a fourth feature, which she described as genre even if it is not pure genre, though she has not revealed its subject.