Lift-Off Season Awards 2016

The 2016 Lift-Off Season

Our city-based festivals in 2016 were spread throughout the year in community hubs that we have identified as crucial indie filmmaking locations. We mixed local and international screenings, with Q&A’s, highly attended networking events, and workshops. 2016 saw us introduce the First-Time Filmmakers Showcase and our new online initiatives where we invite all films that have scored highly the opportunity to have their place on our network via a festival-limited On-Demand platform. The Lift-Off Season Awards celebrate the best of these incredible and diverse films.

Therefore, to benefit our talented filmmakers, we attended the film markets in Cannes and AFM, with the look to build closer relationships with sales agencies and distributors. Our aim in 2016 was to bridge opportunities between the content we screen and the global market.

We want films that we screen to have the chance of global distribution in 2017 and beyond.

The Lift-Off Season came to its penultimate-conclusion after the final 2016 Lift-Off Showcase, London Lift-Off, back in December – finally concluding in our heavily anticipated Season Awards held from our truly remarkable home at Pinewood Studios in January.

The season awards are held at the end of every Lift-Off Season. Hence it is the main awards ceremony where we congratulate, nominate and award the best the programmes in each Lift-Off of that year had to offer. Always fun, always busy, the Lift-Off Season Awards, although in it’s infancy, has already started to become a heavily anticipated event.

Our hosts this year Brian Jordan Alvarez and Stephanie Koenig were surprised to pick up the honour of Best Web Series and then proceeded with the assistance from our Co-Founders Ben Pohlman and James Bradley to read out the nominees and award the winners with the coveted Lift-Off Trophy.

Brian Jordan Alvarez's first film, 'You Are What I Want' - was one of the very first films we screened at the very first London Lift-Off back in 2011 - it offered a genuine look into a culture rarely exposed yet multi-lived in cities across the world.

Brian and Stephanie's work has gone from strength to strength. You can check out Brian and Stephanie's work via Brian's youtube channel here.