AboutLift-Off Global Network
The International Home of True-Indie Film
Launching true-indie filmmakers since 2010. Each year, a season of festivals and showcases across the globe carries new work through judged rounds to the Season Awards at Pinewood Studios.
Start With the Films
Before anything else, watch the work
In 2019, Philip Barantini won Best Director at the Season Awards for his short Boiling Point. He grew that short into a single-take feature with Stephen Graham, then went on to direct Adolescence.
In 2017, the cast of The Silent Child won Best Acting Ensemble at our Pinewood ceremony. Weeks later, the film won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short.
Both started as true-indie shorts. Both screened with Lift-Off on the way up.
Last season’s class is a good place to look next: Wake Up, A Memory Owed, millie, The Deserter, HASIK, and the rest of the Season Awards #16 winners.
How the Season Works
Your film enters at a city festival and, if it keeps progressing, ends the year at Pinewood. Here's the path.
Every city-based festival screening is in competition and Season Award qualifying.
Global
Film Festivals
The season runs through city festivals worldwide. Each one pairs online screenings with in-person networking, so your film reaches an audience, and you meet the people making work alongside it.
Official Selections are also invited into focus groups and online workshops across the event.
Festival Events
Each festival hosts a series of online and in-person events, connecting filmmaking talent across the globe
Focus Group Feedback
Meet fellow filmmakers, exchange feedback and discuss your projects. Focus Group participants attend an online meeting to pitch their work before participating in the Feedback Session.
In-Person Networking Speeddate
Join us in the city for a showcase & networking event held in conjunction with the festival’s online screenings. Attendees chat to everyone in the room in a 'speed-date' style networking session.
Online Networking SpeedDate
Pitch your future projects or share previous work. Attendees can screen a trailer or pitch deck before meeting with everyone in a 'speed-date' style network session.
Season Awards
Celebrating the best-of-the-best from the Lift-Off Season
The season builds to the Season Awards ceremony @ Pinewood Studios. Films nominated throughout the year are screened by category, and the awards are handed out in person.
Nominations are earned across the season, through the festival rounds and the jury’s picks.
Previous winners have gone on to features, distribution deals, and awards beyond Lift-Off. Many more came away with new collaborators and the momentum to make the next thing.
Beyond the Festivals
Online & Inperson
Showcases
The Lift-Off Showcases help emerging filmmakers develop their careers and reach new audiences with workshops tailored around peer-to-peer feedback, with a potential distribution via Lift-Off’s ‘Filmmakers in the Spotlight’ YouTube channel.
YouTUbe
Filmmakers in the Spotlight
Award-winning Lift-Off films that have finished their festival run get featured on our YouTube channel, in front of a wider audience.
Just Starting Out?
Try Sessions & First-Time Filmmaker Sessions
Sessions – a free-to-submit event – is built around feedback. Your film screens in a monthly online showcase, and every viewer, filmmakers and audience alike, leaves written notes on the work. You get real, specific feedback from people who watched your film closely.
The top film in each programme earns an official selection at the Lift-Off Festival of your choice.
Judging & Awards
Each season, the Lift-Off Global Network screens hundreds of incredible films from diverse artists that all deserve praise
In the first round, the Lift-Off judges and the general audience review the films and vote for the four projects they wish to see progress to the second round – The Network Round. After the festival closes, audience votes are combined with the judge’s scores and the top-rated films in each programme progress to the Network Round.
Hosted on the Lift-Off Network Hub, the Network Round is an internal screening where Lift-Off members can review the films and the Network Round Jury select the winners and allocate Season Award Nominations.
Network Round FInal
The final round of each festival. Featuring projects that scored highly with the judges and audiences in the first round
Audience Choice Award
Each audience member votes for their favourite projects. The highest-scoring films are combined with the Judges' picks and promoted into the Network Round final.
Season Award Nominations
The winning projects from the Network Round are awarded shortlist places and become eligible for a Lift-Off Season Award Nomination.