Guests

Jaume Balagueró (born 1968 in Lleida, Catalonia) is one of the greats of contemporary Spanish genre cinema. He first gained attention in 1994 with his short film Alicia, which won an award at the Sitges Film Festival, and then cemented his reputation with Los sin nombre (The Nameless, 1999), a dark and striking first feature.

He followed this with Darkness (2002), which enjoyed international release, and Frágiles (Fragile, 2005), confirming his atmospheric and disturbing style. However, it was in 2007 that he achieved worldwide recognition by co-directing the cult film [REC] with Paco Plaza, which revolutionized found footage horror and gave rise to an essential saga, which he also directed [REC]² (2009) and [REC]⁴: Apocalypse (2014).

At the same time, Balagueró explored the thriller genre with Mientras duermes (Malveillance, 2011), acclaimed for its psychological intensity and starring Luis Tosar. He returned in 2021 with Way Down (The Vault), a spectacular heist film, confirming his ease in navigating between horror, suspense and action. Today, Jaume Balagueró is recognized as a master of suspense and fear, whose visual and narrative universe continues to influence international genre cinema.

Jonas Govaerts (b. 1980) is a Belgian film, television, and music video director from Antwerp. After gaining attention with a series of award-winning short horror films, Govaerts made his feature debut with the boy-scout-themed slasher CUB (2014), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and earned him the Best Director award at the Sitges Film Festival.

He followed CUB with the psychological thriller series Tabula Rasa (2017), which became a global hit after launching on Netflix. In 2022, Govaerts directed and co-wrote H4Z4RD, a surreal action-comedy starring world-renowned DJ Dimitri Vegas.

Most recently, he directed Amsterdam Empire (2025), a Dutch crime series starring Famke Janssen, set to premiere worldwide on Netflix the day before Halloween.

Outside of film, Govaerts is an accomplished musician and has released several albums with Belgian bands The Hickey Underworld and Arabnormal. The fourth album by The Hickey Underworld is scheduled for release in February 2026.