Befitting a festival with a strong interdisciplinary spirit and a crowd that skews young, the Neuchâtel Intl. Fantastic Film Festival has given Swiss streaming sensation Baghera Jones carte blanche to program three films close to her heart.
Her choices — Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Celebration,” Paul Verhoeven’s “Starship Troopers” and Bong Joon-ho’s “The Host” — align perfectly with NIFFF’s editorial vision, and that’s no coincidence. Born and raised in Neuchâtel, Jones grew up alongside the festival, her tastes and sensibilities shaped through years of attendance.
“We’re putting an audience member in the spotlight, which is a deliberate choice,” says NIFFF director Pierre-Yves Walder. “We’d never done that before. We only realized she was a longtime fan when her festival posts went viral. Today, fantastic cinema exists across micro-cultures, platforms and spaces of influence, and we wanted to reflect that by handing the mic to someone like her.”
‘The Host’
The same spirit of discovery drives NIFFF’s Amazing Schools showcase, spotlighting eight short films produced over the past year by students from Swiss film and art schools.
“We want to champion emerging talent and launch future international voices,” says NIFFF short film coordinator Charlotte Serrand. “For these young filmmakers it’s a chance to experience the full life of a film, from finishing it to watching it screened for an audience. The energy they bring to the festival is contagious.”
Serrand, who has programmed for France’s La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festival since 2012 and has run the fest since 2018, first discovered Neuchâtel as a curious festival-goer, often turning to NIFFF for inspiration. One early discovery was “Swiss Army Man,” the 2014 oddball comedy from Oscar winners The Daniels.
“It always starts with the thrill of discovery,” Serrand says. “I began by scouting the program, requesting screeners, getting a feel for their vision and from there, the need to experience the festival in person quickly followed.”
She has brought the same mindset to her second year curating NIFFF’s short film lineup.
“As with the wider festival, we don’t stick to strict definitions,” says Serrand. “We look toward animation, abstract forms, films that twist the rules. Fantastic cinema is also about throwing things off balance, shifting perspectives, bending reality, sometimes in quiet, subtle ways. The goal is to show how broad fantastic cinema can be and to open the door to contemporary cinema more generally, always with the NIFFF audience in mind.”
Standouts from this year’s international selection include “Atom & Void” by Portuguese director Gonçalo Almeida, “Motus” from France’s Aya Nour and Matty Crawford’s BAFTA-nominated “Stomach Bug.”
‘Atom & Void’
A Midnight Jury winner at SXSW, “Stomach Bug” explores parenthood from a gender-flipped perspective, following an empty-nester dad who suddenly and inexplicably finds himself pregnant. Meanwhile, after turning heads at Sitges and Fantastic Fest, Almeida’s sci-fi short “Atom & Void” arrives in Neuchâtel, offering a prime example of how the genre circuit can champion rising talent.
“Gonçalo Almeida is one of the most distinctive voices in Portuguese fantastic cinema,” says Serrand. “He’s now preparing his second feature and has already won prizes, including at BIFFF in Brussels. His shorts show real visual and narrative invention. He’s emerging as a true auteur.”
“Motus” will make its world premiere in Neuchâtel. Shot in a single location with handcrafted paper sets, the film follows three siblings through a surreal, fairytale space. Though director Aya Nour once served as an assistant to Wes Anderson, her second short stands apart, blending Tim Burton-style whimsy with a Méliès-inspired love of early cinema.
“It’s a real discovery,” says Serrand. “Handmade, playful and entirely her own. Exactly the kind of new voice a festival like this is meant to reveal.”
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