Berlin Lift-Off Film Festival 2023 - Network Round Features

Wednesday 15th March - Wednesday 22nd March

1.

After the Flood: The Church, Slavery and Reconciliation
Dir. Sheila Marshall
UK
Logline: How the church came to justify slavery, its consequences and how, we can move on from those legacies.

2.

MOTHER OF APOSTLES
Dir. Zaza Buadze
Ukraine
Logline: In 2014, Sofia's peaceful life was invaded by the war, when she received a news informing her that the humanitarian plane that her son was flying was shot down over the occupied territory, where there is war.
After receiving an unsatisfactory response from the military regarding her son's life, she packs a small suitcase and travels to the occupied territory, to find her son.
Sofia understands the danger, however is determined to find her son. While traveling by bus, at the border, she gets saved from the militants by a local resident - Fedir.

3.

Serendipity
Dir. Vivian Guarnieri
Italy
Logline: Serendipity is the unexpected encounter with something wonderful that happens while we are looking elsewhere. The unexpected, that is the unknown element of life, therefore acquires a positive connotation attributable to the concept of a happy discovery made while we are living.
"Serendipity" is an intimate and syncretic film that recalls the rhythm of life and keeps the viewer close to the hemisphere of sensation, leaving the viewer the space to build his own interpretation of the story of which the title and the piano are the real protagonists.

4.

To stage the music - Heiner Goebbels
Dir. Giulio Boato
Italy
Logline: Story of a composer for whom an orchestra is not enough.

Three years with Heiner Goebbels, to tell the story of his half-century-long career through his latest symphonic work.

What holds together a Bach fugue, a road sign used as a gong, a text by Samuel Beckett and the voices of two Georgian prisoners from 1916? Heiner Goebbels is an eclectic composer, impossible to define according to the definitions of XX century’s music and art. He uses space, objects, bodies and ethnographic recordings as musical instruments. In his fifty-year career he has experimented with everything: from rock bands to opera directing, starting with “Bella Ciao” to arrive at “A House of Call”, his latest creation and a synthesis of his career. The film goes through the three-year creation of this particular symphonic work, from the first meeting with the conductor to its debut at Berlin Philharmonic. The pieces of the concert, filmed in detail by a single camera among the musicians, are the starting point for tracing the threads of Goebbels' artistic creation, linked to the historical events that have marked the last fifty years in Germany and Europe. Archival footage and interviews tell the journey of an artist who has never stopped experimenting

5.

LET IT BEE (Ein Himmel voller Bienen)
Dir. Vanessa Weber von Schmoller
Germany
Logline: The documentary "LET IT BEE" takes us on a journey to people who are committed to protecting species, especially wild bees. He shows how everyone can help protect this species and other insects. Because in Germany, 75% of the biomass of flying insects has already disappeared forever.

6.

TIL STEDE / from soil to soul
Dir. Johanna Seim
Norway
Logline: "TIL STEDE / from soil to soul" takes the audience behind the scenes and conveys how it feels to be in a creative process as a musician. How a place, soil, food, people and instruments intertwine in this process. The film is based on the theme of folk music and puts old hardanger fiddle traditions from Telemark, Norway, in a new perspective. Through a meeting between three women, "Til Stede" reflects on what it is like to be human today: the need to be in contact with nature, the urge to create something of your own and express yourself, and the desire for community and feeling alive.

7.

Purpur
Dir. Isabelle Konrad
Germany
Logline: "Purpur" is an experimental look at gender issues in the film business and tells the story of a film character who rebels against an outdated image of women and a discriminatory system.
Isana is the fictional main character of a film production. She continuously receives instructions in the form of script pages that dictate how she is to behave in each of the next scenes. But she wants to break out of the classic, romantic concept of the love story, the life that has been prescribed for her, and determine it for herself. Invisibly, the pressure of successful commercial exploitation lies on the production, which threatens to fail through Isana's rebellion. So, in addition to the conflict between the film characters, there is also a conflict between the creators of Isana and her world, the director and the producer. Driven by existential fears, all eventually become perpetrators but also victims of an exploitative and marginalized power system.