The Mill at Sitges 2026: The Carpenter’s Son and Father Joe

The Mill is heading to the Sitges Film Festival 2026 with VFX featured in two films from this year’s programme: The Carpenter’s Son and Father Joe. Alongside the screenings, The Mill will also take part in a special conference exploring the creative and technical craft behind The Carpenter’s Son, in partnership with TransPerfect.

Bringing together supernatural horror, psychological tension and ambitious visual storytelling, the films and conference offer an opportunity to celebrate the artists and production teams behind some of this year’s most distinctive genre filmmaking.

The Carpenter’s Son

Directed by Lotfy Nathan, The Carpenter’s Son is a supernatural thriller set in a remote village in Roman-era Egypt. Inspired by the director’s Coptic Christian background, the film explores faith, temptation and the battle between divine and demonic forces through a dark reimagining of a familiar biblical story.

The film stars Nicolas Cage as Joseph, FKA twigs as Mary and Noah Jupe as their teenage son, Jesus. When a mysterious stranger enters their lives, Jesus is drawn towards a forbidden world, while Joseph begins to suspect that a demonic force is at work. As strange and violent events unfold, Jesus experiences increasingly disturbing visions and discovers the true identity of his new companion.

For The Mill, bringing the film’s supernatural world to life involved 125 VFX shots created over six months. Under the supervision of Hugues Namur, with Laurence Hoeters leading VFX production, Barthélémy Beaux as 2D Supervisor and Ryan Bardoul as 3D Supervisor in Liège, the teams worked across a broad range of visual effects. The work included CG snake creation, CG babies, fire and smoke FX, environment fixes and anachronism corrections, alongside magical and supernatural effects that help shape the film’s unsettling visual language.

The Carpenter’s Son screens at Sitges on Thursday 8 October at 18:00 in Sala Tramuntana Meliá, followed by a second screening on Friday 9 October at 01:15 in Sala Auditori Meliá. The film is part of the SOF – Sitges Collection.

Behind the VFX: Snakes, Fire, and the Unholy Supernatural

The Mill will also take audiences behind the scenes of The Carpenter’s Son with a dedicated conference presented in partnership with TransPerfect.

Snakes, Fire, and the Unholy Supernatural: Building the VFX of "The Carpenter’s Son" October 15, 2026 | 6:45–7:45 PM

The session will explore how The Mill’s artists brought the film’s supernatural imagery to life, from the creation of its CG snake and fire effects to the compositing and visual development required to build its unsettling supernatural world.

The conference will feature:

• Barthélémy Beaux — The Mill, CG Supervisor
• Ryan Bardoul — The Mill, Compositing Supervisor
• Jacques Barreau — TransPerfect, Vice President, Media & Interactive Entertainment

The panel will offer a closer look at the creative process behind the film, giving audiences insight into the collaboration between artists, supervisors and production partners that shaped its visual effects.

Father Joe

Also screening in the Òrbita section is Father Joe, directed by Barthélemy Grossmann and written and produced by Luc Besson.

The film had its world premiere Out of Competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, and stars Kiefer Sutherland, Ever Anderson and Al Pacino.

For Father Joe, The Mill delivered an extensive 350 VFX shots, with Laurent Creusot providing VFX supervision and Alice Neichols leading VFX production. The project brought together our artists and production teams to create and refine the visual effects required to support Grossmann’s genre-driven storytelling.

Following its Venice world premiere, Father Joe continues its festival journey at Sitges, where it will screen on Thursday 8 October at 23:00 in Sala Tramuntana Meliá, with a further screening at 18:00 in Sala Auditori Meliá.