SA horror film wins Swiss fest top honour

Hen, a new South African arthouse horror film, has won the 2026 HR Giger Narcisse Award for best feature film at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF) in Switzerland.

The Afrikaans movie is the first African film to receive the award in the festival’s 25-year history. As a result, Nagvlug Films has released a new international trailer for the production. The festival is dedicated to fantastic cinema, a broad category that includes science fiction, fantasy and horror.

South African writer-director Nico Scheepers collected the award, which included a CHF 10,000 prize. Previous Narcisse winners include Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, Gaspar Noé’s Climax, Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow, Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room and André Øvredal’s Troll Hunter.

Set on an isolated farm, Hen follows a man who finds a boy locked inside a wooden chest, surrounded by dead bodies, and takes him home to his wife.  

“[The film’s] striking portrayal of an insidious evil that takes hold of a devout community against an apocalyptic backdrop, brought to life by remarkably skilful direction and the unforgettable perspective of a young boy,” says the Neuchâtel’s international jury.

Hen is presented by kykNET Films and produced by Nagvlug Films (My F*k, Marelize!, which set a post-COVID box office record locally).

Hen has won awards across almost every department, with Silwerskerm recognising it for its cinematography (Chris Lotz), editing (Regardt Botha), sound design (Tim Pringle), makeup and hair (Jolene Cilliers) and costume design (Sulet Meintjes).

Much of the film draws on Scheepers’ childhood growing up on a remote farm in Limpopo.

“Silence and survival shaped everything,” he says. “If the freezer was empty, we loaded the rifle. The smell of gunpowder, the weight of steel, the sight of something alive taking its last breath – this was my childhood. That silence, that isolation, is where Hen comes from. This film asks what happens when the thin layer of civilisation peels away and only instinct remains.”

Stian Bam won the Silwerskerm best actor award as Dawid, after being up against his co-star, newcomer Dawian van der Westhuize (Lukas). Amalia Uys, who was up for best actress at the South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) last year for Tuiskoms, was also nominated as Hanna. The cast workshopped the story from a 17-page treatment, rather than a traditional screenplay.

Lotz filmed the period horror in striking black-and-white, giving the film a stark, mythic quality.

“We wanted to strip away time until the story feels unearthed, almost archaeological,” says Scheepers.

Pringle similarly stripped back the sound design. The film’s first dialogue arrives 18 minutes in, and there is no musical score.

“With no score – only wind, birds and creaking wood – every sound becomes unbearable,” says Scheepers. “I find the silence of isolation far more terrifying than a jump scare. There’s a big difference between a cheap physical fright and something that slowly bores into your brain like a maggot.”

Waldimar Pelser, channel director for premium channels at MultiChoice (a Canal+ company), says: “It gave the kykNET team great satisfaction to commission a film like Hen. Here is a piece of art which not only sweeps us away with magisterial cinematography and visceral performances, it also unnerves its viewers. Hen is a reminder that in art, as in life, simple explanations often elude us.”

The Neuchâtel win is the latest in a string of festival accolades for South Africa’s Afrikaans-language film industry: Variations on a Theme won best film at Rotterdam in February, The Heart Is A Muscle won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Berlin last year, and Koek was nominated for an International Emmy for best drama in 2025. 

Zandré Coetzer, Nagvlug Films’ co-founder and producer, says: “This is the first African film to win the top prize at Neuchâtel but I doubt it will be the last. Our industry is export-ready and we are excited to see more films from South Africa presented on the global stage.”

The same weekend, both Hen and Scheepers’ play Leefbaar won at the Vrystaat Arts Festival.

Nagvlug Films has worked with Scheepers since his first short film and produced his two TV series: the crime drama Donkerbos; and the family drama Nêrens, Noord-Kaap. Both became the most awarded series of the year at Silwerskerm, with Donkerbos featured at Berlinale Series Market Selects, a showcase of projects with strong market potential.

Chanél Muller, Nagvlug Films’ co-owner and producer, says: “Nico is a South African talent who deserves a global stage. Fear is universal, so we’re not surprised this film has struck a nerve wherever it’s screened, from Cape Town to Glasgow to Neuchâtel. We’ve built Nagvlug Films around collaboration, so this award is for the entire team who poured themselves into Hen.”

Nagvlug Films’ next releases, Scheepers’ Landmyn (Landmine) and Coetzer’s Silas en die Ysbeer op Tafelberg (Silas and the Polar Bear on Table Mountain), premiere at Silwerskerm in August before opening in South African cinemas in September 2026.