Terry Gilliam, Joe Dante,Paul Verhoeven, Darren Aronofsy and Brad Anderson are a few of the directorsexpected this year at the upcoming 39th edition of the InternationalFilm Festival of Catalunya (Oct 6-15), better known as Sitges.

The popular genre event willopen with Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth then give way to a selection of films frominternationally recognised auteurs. David Lynch, a Sitges regular, willbeunable toattend the festival with his new film, Inland Empire, but remains thesubject of a retrospective on the 20th anniversary of Blue Velvet.

World premieres at Sitgesinclude Roland Joffe's Captivity,Douglas Buck's remake of Brian de Palma's Sisters,Thomas Dunn's The Ungodly and localfilmmakers Elio Quiroga's La Hora Friaand Maria Lidon's Moscow Zero.

The wide-ranging festivalhosts a series of sidebars and smaller competitive sections outside its mainOfficial Fantastic selection. Terry Gilliam will present Tideland within the sidebar Europa Imaginaria.Paul Verhoevenwill receive this year's Gan Premio Honorifico, screening his film Black Book with the Premiere Section,where non-genre films also have a spot. Within this section this year are nameslike Richard Linklater with A ScannerDarkly, Woody Allen's Scoop, DarrenAronofsky's The Fountain, Roland Joffe'sCaptivity, Neil Labute's The Wicker Man and Simon Brand's Unknown.

Sitges also hosts a salesoffice that runs this year from Oct 6-8 and features Germany and Eastern Europe as invited guests.Co-sponsored by promotional body Catalan Films & TV, the office welcomed 57buyers and 176 sellers last year to peruse more than 300 titles.

The Official Fantasticline-up includes well-known names from the US and Asia, such as: JohnCarpenter's Cigarette Burn (MastersOf Horror, Ep 8) (US-Can); Buck's Sisters(US); Johnnie To's Exiled (HongKong); Rian Johnson's Brick (US);Takashi Miike's Big Bang Love,Juvenile A (46 Oku Nen No Koi) (Jap); Dante's Homecoming (Masters of Horror, Ep 6) (US-Can); Boon Joon-ho's The Host (Guimul); Chris Gorak's Right At Your Door (US); Thomas Dunn's The Ungodly (US-Sp); Kim Ki-Duk's Time (Shigan);

Remaining competitors comefrom Europe, including: Michel Gondry's TheScience Of Sleep (Fr); Nacho Cerda's TheAbandoned (Sp); Jens Lien's TheBothersome Man (Den Brysomme Mannen) (Nor); Tiago Guedes and FredericoSerra's Bad Blood (Coisa Ruim)(Port); Quiroga's La Hora Fria; DavidMoreau and Xavier Palud's Them (Ils)(Fr); Anders Morgenthaler's Princess(Den-Ger); Christian Volckman's Renaissance(Fr-Lux-UK); Hans-Christian Schmid's Requiem(Ger); Martin Weisz's Grimm Love(Rohtenburg) (Ger); Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein's Storm (Swe); Gyorgy Palfi's Taxidermia(Hung-Austr-Fr): and Gela Babluani's 13(Tzameti) (Fr-Georgia).