Director of “Die Hard,” “Predator” and “The Hunt for Red October,” John McTiernan will step into the limelight at this year’s Neuchatel Intl. Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), presenting three of his films as guest of honor while serving on the festival jury.
If anything, the choice of honoree was obvious for Nifff artistic director Pierre-Yves Walder, who calls McTiernan “the Pope of action cinema.”
“The very idea of John McTiernan meeting our public will shape the history of our festival,” Walder says. “Because his films fed a shared love of movies, for us in Neuchatel and around the world.”
“McTiernan’s films are like luxury prototypes,” says Walder. “He helped invent this extremely muscular action cinema with a rough edge, turning Bruce Willis into an icon and creating the mold for modern sci-fi action.”
And if Walder was thrilled when McTiernan offered to present “Die Hard” and “Predator” at the lakeside Swiss festival,...
If anything, the choice of honoree was obvious for Nifff artistic director Pierre-Yves Walder, who calls McTiernan “the Pope of action cinema.”
“The very idea of John McTiernan meeting our public will shape the history of our festival,” Walder says. “Because his films fed a shared love of movies, for us in Neuchatel and around the world.”
“McTiernan’s films are like luxury prototypes,” says Walder. “He helped invent this extremely muscular action cinema with a rough edge, turning Bruce Willis into an icon and creating the mold for modern sci-fi action.”
And if Walder was thrilled when McTiernan offered to present “Die Hard” and “Predator” at the lakeside Swiss festival,...
- 6/23/2023
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Upon taking the reins of the Neuchatel Intl. Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff) last year, incoming artistic director Pierre-Yves Walder marked his first edition with Scream Queer, a thematic retrospective that explored the thorny and thrillingly diverse forms of queer representation in genre fare. Now building on the success of that well-received program, the Nifff director wanted to deliver a sequel of sorts.
“We want to continue last year’s investigations and to take our thematic journeys a step further,” Walder explains. “You could say that this focus will continue to ask and answer the same questions with a slightly different emphasis.”
And so here comes Female Trouble, a 20-film, century-spanning spotlight built on a French play-on-words that blurs gender and genre. Starting with Mario Roncoroni’s silent serial “Filibus,” which mixed sci-fi motifs with gender-fluidity and lesbian desire all the way back in 1915, and on through Jacques Tourneur’s “Cat People...
“We want to continue last year’s investigations and to take our thematic journeys a step further,” Walder explains. “You could say that this focus will continue to ask and answer the same questions with a slightly different emphasis.”
And so here comes Female Trouble, a 20-film, century-spanning spotlight built on a French play-on-words that blurs gender and genre. Starting with Mario Roncoroni’s silent serial “Filibus,” which mixed sci-fi motifs with gender-fluidity and lesbian desire all the way back in 1915, and on through Jacques Tourneur’s “Cat People...
- 6/23/2023
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
For more than two decades, the Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff) has been a draw for genre filmmakers from across the globe and a pull for Swiss youth. Heading into its 22nd edition, which runs June 30 – July 8, the lakeside event will once again showcase the kind outré and audacious fare that Neuchatel’s reliable and devoted young public has come to expect, while continuing to bridge outward, welcoming more unfamiliar faces into the fold.
“By instinct, influence, and mutual attraction, genre cinema will always appeal to the young,” says Nifff director Pierre-Yves Walder. “In fact, Nifff attracts one of the youngest publics of any Swiss festival, but I’d like to convert different audiences of perhaps different ages as well. And not just for commercial reasons; I find it so interesting and essential to mix things up.”
Showcasing 124 films, including eight world premieres and seven international launches, this year...
“By instinct, influence, and mutual attraction, genre cinema will always appeal to the young,” says Nifff director Pierre-Yves Walder. “In fact, Nifff attracts one of the youngest publics of any Swiss festival, but I’d like to convert different audiences of perhaps different ages as well. And not just for commercial reasons; I find it so interesting and essential to mix things up.”
Showcasing 124 films, including eight world premieres and seven international launches, this year...
- 6/23/2023
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
The event runs June 30-July 8.
Die Hard director John McTiernan and leading French actress and writer Josiane Balasko are among those taking part in this year’s Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), which runs June 30-July 8.
The full programme for the 22nd edition of the Swiss event, again under the artistic direction of Pierre-Yves Walder, includes 124 films from 5 continents and 44 countries. There are eight world premieres, among them Irish director Ian Hunt-Duffy’s horror thriller Double Blind starring The Walking Dead’s Pollyanna McIntosh, alongside Millie Brady and Kate Ashfield, and Quarxx’s new horror Pandemonium, both screening in the festival’s Ultra Section.
Die Hard director John McTiernan and leading French actress and writer Josiane Balasko are among those taking part in this year’s Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), which runs June 30-July 8.
The full programme for the 22nd edition of the Swiss event, again under the artistic direction of Pierre-Yves Walder, includes 124 films from 5 continents and 44 countries. There are eight world premieres, among them Irish director Ian Hunt-Duffy’s horror thriller Double Blind starring The Walking Dead’s Pollyanna McIntosh, alongside Millie Brady and Kate Ashfield, and Quarxx’s new horror Pandemonium, both screening in the festival’s Ultra Section.
- 6/16/2023
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
US author Joyce Carol Oates headed the jury of the Swiss festival,
French director Simon Rieth’s first feature Summer Scars (Nos Cérémonies) won the best feature prize at Switzerland’s Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff) which closed on Saturday July 9.
The award comes with a prize of Chf 10,000 from the City of Neuchâtel.
Summer Scars is sold by Wild Bunch International.
“Brilliant and audacious in conception, beautifully directed and performed, Summer Scars is a startlingly original exploration of an intimate bond between brothers that resists translation into terms other than its own,” said Joyce Carol Oates, president of the international jury.
French director Simon Rieth’s first feature Summer Scars (Nos Cérémonies) won the best feature prize at Switzerland’s Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff) which closed on Saturday July 9.
The award comes with a prize of Chf 10,000 from the City of Neuchâtel.
Summer Scars is sold by Wild Bunch International.
“Brilliant and audacious in conception, beautifully directed and performed, Summer Scars is a startlingly original exploration of an intimate bond between brothers that resists translation into terms other than its own,” said Joyce Carol Oates, president of the international jury.
- 7/11/2022
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Simon Rieth’s “Summer Scars,” a seaside tale of fraternal love cast in a woozy glow and cut with shocking spikes of violence, won top honors at this year’s Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival, claiming the Narcisse Award for best feature film, and with it 10,200 in prize money and a trophy designed Switzerland’s own H.R. Giger.
Del Kathryn Barton’s “Blaze,” an hallucinatory Australian drama that carries a young murder witness into a kaleidoscopic fantasy world, received honorable mention and won the Imaging the Future award for best production design, which comes with a 5100 grant.
Other prizes went to Tunisian director Youssef Chebbi’s “Ashkal,” which won the international critics award; to Italy’s Gabriele Mainetti, whose circus-superhero mashup “Freaks Out” won the Rts audience awards; and to Chris Huang Wen-chang’s “Demigod: The Legend Begins,” a martial arts epic told entirely with puppets, which won the audience award for best Asian film.
Del Kathryn Barton’s “Blaze,” an hallucinatory Australian drama that carries a young murder witness into a kaleidoscopic fantasy world, received honorable mention and won the Imaging the Future award for best production design, which comes with a 5100 grant.
Other prizes went to Tunisian director Youssef Chebbi’s “Ashkal,” which won the international critics award; to Italy’s Gabriele Mainetti, whose circus-superhero mashup “Freaks Out” won the Rts audience awards; and to Chris Huang Wen-chang’s “Demigod: The Legend Begins,” a martial arts epic told entirely with puppets, which won the audience award for best Asian film.
- 7/9/2022
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
After two years of hybrid and online-only editions, the Neuchatel Intl. Fantastic Film Festival will fête its 21st year with a return to a fully on-site event, hosting four world premieres, and more than twice as many international premieres.
Running July 1-9, the Swiss event will world premiere the absurdist “Jaws”-in-France riff “The Year of the Shark,” the Thai creature feature “Leio,” and the Japanese Yakuza thriller “Bad City.” Titles like the Toho-produced Kaiju flick “Shin Ultraman,” “Something in the Dirt” from U.S. horror maestros Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, and Léa Mysius’ “The Five Devils” will mark their international berths at Nifff – the latter as the festival’s opening film.
This blackjack edition will also mark the first year under the direction of Pierre-Yves Walder, a Nifff veteran whose involvement with the lakefront festival dates back some time. After a stint in the press office, years as a programmer,...
Running July 1-9, the Swiss event will world premiere the absurdist “Jaws”-in-France riff “The Year of the Shark,” the Thai creature feature “Leio,” and the Japanese Yakuza thriller “Bad City.” Titles like the Toho-produced Kaiju flick “Shin Ultraman,” “Something in the Dirt” from U.S. horror maestros Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, and Léa Mysius’ “The Five Devils” will mark their international berths at Nifff – the latter as the festival’s opening film.
This blackjack edition will also mark the first year under the direction of Pierre-Yves Walder, a Nifff veteran whose involvement with the lakefront festival dates back some time. After a stint in the press office, years as a programmer,...
- 6/23/2022
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Heading into his first edition at the helm of the Neuchatel Intl. Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), artistic director Pierre-Yves Walder looked to land his white whale, setting his sights on a retrospective idea he’d dreamed up many years before.
“In concrete terms, I’ve wanted to do this ever since I first applied to the festival,” Walder says of Scream Queer, a pet project that reflects on Lgbtiq+ representation through the lens of the fantastic. “I wanted to explore social elements through genre, which has always been a mirror for society, a place to express certain unmentionable ideas in abstract, using metaphor to explore subjects off limits in more direct approaches.”
Showcasing 15 films curated by Walder and his team and another four selected by The xx singer Oliver Sim, this year’s centerpiece retrospective brings together camp items like “Nightmare on Elm Street II,” cult classics like the Wachowski...
“In concrete terms, I’ve wanted to do this ever since I first applied to the festival,” Walder says of Scream Queer, a pet project that reflects on Lgbtiq+ representation through the lens of the fantastic. “I wanted to explore social elements through genre, which has always been a mirror for society, a place to express certain unmentionable ideas in abstract, using metaphor to explore subjects off limits in more direct approaches.”
Showcasing 15 films curated by Walder and his team and another four selected by The xx singer Oliver Sim, this year’s centerpiece retrospective brings together camp items like “Nightmare on Elm Street II,” cult classics like the Wachowski...
- 6/23/2022
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Nifff 2022: A 21st Edition Under The Aegis Of Fantastic Plurality
The Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival unveiled its complete 2022 programme on June 16, 2022. It is the first year the festival has Pierre-Yves Walder as its new General and Artistic Director.
True to its explorative approach, the Nifff is summoning the global imagination with a programme that includes 128 works from five continents, thus faithfully prolonging the festival’s rich history. The International Competition, the jury of which is presided by none other than American author Joyce Carol Oates, explores the current trends of fantastic films through a beautifully diverse overview of the ruminations of our era. The festival brings together the boldest new voices of the time and the latest works from frequently selected filmmakers. The goal is to strengthen its role as a bridge maker between generations and between the arts in order to ensure better inclusivity. Last but not least,...
The Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival unveiled its complete 2022 programme on June 16, 2022. It is the first year the festival has Pierre-Yves Walder as its new General and Artistic Director.
True to its explorative approach, the Nifff is summoning the global imagination with a programme that includes 128 works from five continents, thus faithfully prolonging the festival’s rich history. The International Competition, the jury of which is presided by none other than American author Joyce Carol Oates, explores the current trends of fantastic films through a beautifully diverse overview of the ruminations of our era. The festival brings together the boldest new voices of the time and the latest works from frequently selected filmmakers. The goal is to strengthen its role as a bridge maker between generations and between the arts in order to ensure better inclusivity. Last but not least,...
- 6/17/2022
- by Suzie Cho
- AsianMoviePulse
Lea Mysius’s ‘The Five Devils’ will open the festival, which runs July 1-9.
Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival, one of Europe’s leading fantasy festivals, has announced its full programme today (16 June).
The festival will open with the international premiere of The Five Devils by Léa Mysius, while the closing film is Sun Haipeng’s animated feature I Am What I Am.
This is the first edition under Pierre-Yves Walder, who took up the post of general and artistic director last July after 11 years as part of the Nifff programming team. The competition jury is to be headed by US author Joyce Carol Oates,...
Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival, one of Europe’s leading fantasy festivals, has announced its full programme today (16 June).
The festival will open with the international premiere of The Five Devils by Léa Mysius, while the closing film is Sun Haipeng’s animated feature I Am What I Am.
This is the first edition under Pierre-Yves Walder, who took up the post of general and artistic director last July after 11 years as part of the Nifff programming team. The competition jury is to be headed by US author Joyce Carol Oates,...
- 6/16/2022
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
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