Neuchâtel festival for fantastic film focuses on diversity
Published: Thursday, Jun 20th 2024, 17:41
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The 23rd International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF) in Neuchâtel is rich in contrasts and diverse in terms of both geography and gender. This was evident on Thursday when the organizers announced the program.
The perspectives change from the intimate to the spectacular. The fantastic film is used to address social and political upheavals, said Pierre-Yves Walder, director of the festival, to the media.
The program includes 124 films, 12 of which are being shown for the first time worldwide. The films come from 46 countries on five continents. In selecting the films, the organizers are looking for debut works and at the same time include established filmmakers in the program, such as the Frenchman Bruno Dumont with "L'empire" or Ti West with "Maxxxine", as Walder said.
Almost half of the 14 films in the international competition were made by women or non-binary people, including Veronika Franz with "Des Teufels Bad", Camila Beltrán with "Mi Bestia", Shalini Ushadevi with "Ennenum" and Jane Schoenbrun with "I saw the TV glow", a queer horror teen movie.
There is also an Asian competition and the Third Kind section, which plays with genre boundaries. The NIFFF is also committed to Swiss filmmaking. The festival has therefore created a new section, Amazing Schools. A selection of films from Swiss art and film schools will be shown there.
This year's guest of honor is the Italian Asia Argento, who appears as a filmmaker, director, screenwriter, producer and actress, but also as a model, DJ and singer. She will receive carte blanche at the festival and present four films that have inspired her. The 23rd NIFFF takes place from July 5 to 13.
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