If you're in Switzerland, you may have already packed your bags, perhaps while you were watching the World Cup quarter-final match between Switzerland and Argentina in the wee hours of the night.
In any event, today is the final day of the 2026 Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival. We thoroughly enjoyed a bit of virtual visiting, as we studied the program each day and sussed out what we might have chosen to experience, if we were there in person, walking in the sunshine, enjoying a delightful breeze from Lake Neuchatel, and strolling into a cinema. Or enjoying an open air screening.
Throughout the balance of the day, there remain board games to play, various virtual worlds to explore, and exhibits to enjoy. What about the films that will be screening?
At 11:00, may we draw your attention to Spanish filmmaker Eugenio Mira's The Birthday? Essentially lost since it premiered in 2004, the film resurfaced a few years ago, as discussed by our own Andrew Mack. What is it all about?
"More spaced out than ever, Corey Feldman arrives at a party where everything feels slightly off. Between paranoid claustrophobia, dark comedy and waking nightmare, this long-overlooked cult film deploys a baroque, labyrinthine mise en scène. A strange, hypnotic trip that distorts perception to the point of vertigo."
In the early afternoon (14:00), the Swiss Shorts program caught our eye, especially after reading the descriptions, which include an animated "oral journey through toothpaste and tangled tongues," another revolving around "sisterhood and witchcraft: tender, subversive remedies," a short featuring "Ramuz revisited in the sculptural streets of Neuchâtel," a well-timed short in which "a footballer comes to life on the wall: reality or Panini sticker?", another "Cuteness alert: a tiny monkey escapes from a stop-motion studio," a spooky-looking short that declares "Welcome to the operating theatre. Dr Q is ready to begin," and, finally, another that sounds well-placed for this festival: "Switzerland's beautiful forests don't always make for pleasant encounters."
For your late-afternoon screening pleasure, Indian horror film Tumbbad sounds perfect. J Hurtado opined: "Something sinister lurks in the bowels of an ancient colonial estate in the rural Indian village of Tumbbad. ...
"Co-directors Rahi Anil Barve and Adesh Prasad bring to the screen an horror film that draws heavily not only on India's colonial history, but also its rich tradition of horror to create a story that starts a new chapter for horror from the region. ...
"A slow burn whose finale is wonderfully unexpected and yet fitting, Tumbbad is a great film."
As much as we would enjoy spending our early evening revisiting Bill Paxton's Frailty or Christopher Landon's Happy Death Day, we favor either of the two newer films. We've already written about the Asian Competition title 4 Tigers, so let's throw a little more light on Natalie Erika James' Saccharine. Our own Mel Valentin wrote about it earlier this year: "It presents itself as both an old-fashioned ghost story and a sleek piece of modern body horror, subgenres that begin to bleed into one another almost as soon as the film starts. Its protagonist, Hana (Midori Francis), shares James's Japanese-Australian background, and the film's tensions -- psychological, cultural, corporeal -- are consistently framed as a struggle not between identities but within them, a state of perpetual internal negotiation."
We realize that Yeon Sang-ho's highly-anticipated Colony is also screening in the early-evening slot, but we suggest waiting until the screening at 22:00, which feels even more appropriate for the subject matter.
"During a biotechnology conference, a rapidly spreading infection throws a Seoul skyscraper into chaos. As the survivors search for a way out, the infected evolve at a terrifying speed. Ten years after Train to Busan, Yeon Sang-ho returns to his roots with a monstrous, spectacular and wildly expansive blockbuster."
Our final recommendation comes from New Zealand. Our own Martin Tsai reviewed the film out of Sundance earlier this year: "Mum, I'm Alien Pregnant isn't interested in redemption so much as endurance -- testing how far it can push its viewers before disgust slowly morphs into something akin to admiration. Thunderlips may not restore New Zealand splatstick to its former prominence, but they do prove the genre still has teeth, and that it's more than willing to bite the hand that feeds it."
The Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival, hereafter referred to as Neuchatel 2026, is "the only Swiss festival dedicated to genre films," per their official description. "The event is mainly devoted to a specific film genre: fantasy. This main theme is complemented by two others: digital creation and Asian cinema."
As one of eight official media partners, we are publishing daily guides to the program, with links to our reviews, where available. You can bookmark our Neuchatel 2026 page for all our updates this year. The festival will run from 3-11 July.