News
- Nico Scheepers’ stark, black-and-white psychological horror has become the first African film to win Neuchâtel’s highest honour, offering another emphatic sign that South African cinema is ready for the world.
- Nico Scheepers’ Hen has become the first African film to win Neuchâtel’s H.R. Giger “Narcisse” Award, turning a stark Limpopo-born horror into a global breakthrough for South African cinema.
- Nico Scheepers’ Hen has become the first African film to win Neuchâtel’s H.R. Giger “Narcisse” Award for Best Feature Film.
On a remote farm in Limpopo, silence was part of survival. Decades later, filmmaker Nico Scheepers has transformed that silence into a piece of South African cinema powerful enough to conquer one of the world’s foremost genre-film festivals.
Hen, Scheepers’ feature-directing debut, has won the H.R. Giger “Narcisse” Award for Best Feature Film at the 25th Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival in Switzerland.
It is the first African film to receive the festival’s highest honour.
Scheepers travelled to Switzerland to accept the award, which includes a CHF 10,000 prize. The festival’s official results confirm Hen as the winner of its 2026 International Competition.
The international jury praised the film’s command of an insidious evil consuming a devout community, as well as the unforgettable perspective through which its story is told.
But Hen did not reach Switzerland by imitating the horror films the world already knows. Its strength lies in how specifically and uncompromisingly South African it is.
The terror inside the silence
Set on an isolated farm, Hen follows Dawid, a man who discovers a young boy locked inside a wooden chest and surrounded by dead bodies. He takes the child, Lukas, home to his wife, Hanna—but the boy’s arrival begins to disturb the already fragile order of their world.
Stian Bam plays Dawid, with newcomer Dawian van der Westhuizen as Lukas and Amalia Uys as Hanna.
The film draws heavily on Scheepers’ childhood on a remote Limpopo farm, where isolation, hunting and the realities of survival shaped his understanding of fear.
Rather than building its horror around a conventional monster or a succession of jump scares, Hen allows dread to gather inside silence.
According to the production notes, the film’s first spoken dialogue arrives 18 minutes into its running time. There is no musical score. Wind, birds, footsteps, breathing and creaking wood become the film’s instruments.
“I find the silence of isolation far more terrifying than a jump scare,” Scheepers says.
Cinematographer Chris Lotz filmed the period horror in severe black and white, removing familiar markers of time and giving the landscape an almost ancient quality. The result is not simply an old-looking film, but a world that appears to have been excavated from a buried memory.
The cast developed the story collaboratively from a 17-page treatment rather than working from a conventional completed screenplay. That process allowed the performances and physical environment to influence the film’s final shape.
A victory built across every department
The Neuchâtel win is not Hen’s first recognition.
At the 2025 Silwerskerm Awards, the film won eight prizes: Best Direction and Best Screenplay for Scheepers, Best Actor for Bam, Best Cinematography for Lotz, Best Editing for Regardt Botha, Best Sound Design for Tim Pringle, Best Makeup and Hairstyling for Jolene Cilliers, and Best Costume Design for Sulet Meintjes. The eight-award achievement is also confirmed by Silwerskerm’s official coverage.
The production now counts Neuchâtel as Hen’s tenth award, following another recent win at the Vrystaat Arts Festival.
Its success across direction, performance, image, sound, editing, costume and makeup is significant. Hen is not being celebrated for one exceptional element while the rest merely supports it. Its identity has been constructed across the entire filmmaking craft.
South African stories are travelling
Hen’s victory arrives during an increasingly important period for South African cinema.
In February, Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar’s Variations on a Theme won the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam—one of that festival’s most prestigious competitions. IFFR described the film as a deeply poetic portrait of community, colonial inheritance and family.
Now, only months later, a psychologically severe Afrikaans horror rooted in rural Limpopo has taken the highest prize at Neuchâtel.
These films are radically different, yet both have succeeded internationally without sanding away the languages, landscapes and cultural particularities that make them South African.
“This is the first African film to win the top prize at Neuchâtel, but I doubt it will be the last,” says Nagvlug Films producer Zandré Coetzer.
“Our industry is export-ready.”
The statement feels less like aspiration after a victory like this. It feels like evidence.
Presented by kykNET Films and produced by Nagvlug Films, Hen demonstrates what becomes possible when filmmakers are trusted to pursue formally daring, locally rooted work. The world did not need Hen to explain itself more politely or make itself more familiar.
Its silence did not need translation.
Watch the international trailer for Hen.
Reporting basis: Based on official NIFFF 2026 award information naming Hen as the H.R. Giger “Narcisse” Award winner, public reporting on Hen’s Neuchâtel victory, Silwerskerm Awards coverage, public film festival records, production-note context supplied for the film, IFFR 2026 information on Variations on a Theme, and Viranova editorial analysis of South African genre cinema’s international momentum.
Frequently asked Answers from the desk
What award did Hen win at Neuchâtel?
Hen won the H.R. Giger “Narcisse” Award for Best Feature Film at the 25th Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival.
Is Hen the first African film to win Neuchâtel’s top prize?
Yes. Public reporting identifies Hen as the first African film to win the festival’s highest honour.
Who directed Hen?
Hen was written and directed by South African filmmaker Nico Scheepers.
Who stars in Hen?
Hen stars Stian Bam as Dawid, Dawian van der Westhuizen as Lukas and Amalia Uys as Hanna.
What is Hen about?
Hen follows a man on an isolated farm who discovers a young boy locked inside a wooden chest surrounded by dead bodies, then takes the child home to his wife as their world begins to unravel.
What makes Hen’s style distinctive?
Hen is a stark black-and-white psychological horror that uses silence, atmosphere, ambient sound and slow-building dread rather than relying on conventional jump scares.
How many Silwerskerm Awards did Hen win?
Hen won eight awards at the 2025 Silwerskerm Awards.
Why does Hen’s Neuchâtel win matter?
The win matters because it places South African and African genre cinema inside a major international festival spotlight without the film losing its local language, landscape or formal identity.
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