The 25th edition of the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF) - a hotly anticipated anniversary edition curated by the event’s new artistic director Kate Reidy - thrilled audiences with an engaged, eclectic and gripping line-up. After nine days of rolling out the big guns (namely 165 guests and 129 films from around the globe), the festival’s results were undoubtedly positive, with a total of 61,000 attendees, packed venues and sold-out screenings. The wealth of themes and genres explored across the programme (ranging from the classic film Slasher, revisited through a queer lens, to Indigenous peoples’ revenge on their colonisers) further underscored the revolutionary potential and freedom offered by fantastic cinema.

This year saw South African director Nico Scheepers’ powerful and mysterious movie Hen crowned victorious. Shot in black and white, this debut feature transports us to a desert landscape steeped in religious fanaticism and fear of the unknown, addressing speciesism and racism by playing with the figure of the evil child. The film won over the International Competition Jury – Spanish director Eugenio Mira, Berlinale critic and programmer Jessica Kiang, filmmaker Julia Kowalski, Swiss author Frederik Peeters and Swiss director Simon Jaquemet - who awarded it the Narcisse for Best Film. The jury praised the “remarkable command” of Scheepers’ film direction and highlighted the power of the “unforgettable gaze of the young boy (the film’s protagonist)”. A Special Mention went to a debut feature film, the US-Canada co-production Breeder by Alex Goyette, which also earned itself the International Critics’ Prize.

Previously unveiled in the Berlinale and offering up a critique of workplace alienation as seen through the eyes of a vengeance-hungry girl, Sleep No More by Indonesian director Edwin picked up the Best Production Design Award. 

The Silver Méliès for Best European Fantastic Feature, meanwhile, went to Do You Believe in Angels, Mr. Drowak? by Swiss director Nicolas Steiner. Laced with black humour and poetry, the film depicts an absurd encounter in a writing workshop between a smiling student and a man broken by alcoholism who no longer believes in anything.

Viewers, for their part, chose to honour Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy’s Hokum - a hallucinatory folk-horror work with a meticulous directorial approach - with the International Competition’s RTS Audience Award, while the Youth Jury presented its Denis-De-Rougemont Youth Award to Marion Le Corroller’s Species, which was recently presented in the Cannes Film Festival.

The winners were as follows:

International Competition

H.R. Giger Narcisse Award for Best Film
Hen - Nico Scheepers (South Africa)

Special Mention
Breeders – Alex Goyette (United States/Canada)

Imaging the Future Award for Best Production Design
Sleep No More – Edwin (Indonesia/Singapore/Japan/Germany/France)

New Cinema from Asia Competition

Audience Award for Best Asian Film
My Daughter Is A Zombie – Pil Gam-sung (South Korea)

Short Film Competition

H.R. Giger Narcisse Award for Best Swiss Short Film
Le Miracle – Avril Lehmann, Yaël Vallotton (Switzerland)

Other awards

Silver Méliès for Best European Fantastic Feature
Do You Believe in Angels, Mr. Drowak? - Nicolas Steiner (Germany/Switzerland)

Silver Méliès for Best European Fantastic Short
Le mouvement tragique des sphères – Simon Rieth (France)

RTS Audience Award
Hokum – Damian McCarthy (Ireland/United States/United Arab Emirates)

RTS Audience Award for Best Short Film
Cosmonauts – Leo Cernic (Slovenia/Italy)

Denis-De-Rougemont Youth Award
Species – Marion Le Corroller (France/Belgium)

Denis-De-Rougemont Youth Award for Best Short Film
The Last Jiangshi – Yu Chih-Chieh (China/Taiwan/Hong Kong)

NIFFF International Critics’ Prize
Breeder – Alex Goyette