New York Lift-Off Film Festival 2025

2. When I'm In The Water
Director: Kennedy Laylon
Producer: Olivia Wood
Country of Origin: United States

Synopsis: Amongst the hundreds of lively ponds that make up Cape Cod, there’s a thriving community of wildlife, foliage… and old women. Susan, the founder of “Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage”, has gathered a group of electrifying old women to battle the growing pollution in the ponds. Life itself can become polluted by loneliness, especially as we age, but through this project these women have unexpectedly revitalized their own lives, not just their environments.

6. Tragedy Without A Hero
Director/Writer/Producer: Revaz Nasidze
Writer: Mariam Khutsishvili
Producer: Giorgi Kurtiashvili
Country of Origin: Georgia

Synopsis: "Tragedy Without a Hero" is a short feature film based on the novel by Niko Lortkipanidze. Set in the early twentieth century in a remote village in western Georgia, the story follows an impoverished family—a widowed father, Iese, and his two orphaned sons, Joni and Dato. The father's desperate actions, driven by extreme hunger, leads Joni to make a heart-wrenching choice...

9. Bootlicker
Director/Writer/Producer: Jesse James Crook
Country of Origin: United States

Synopsis: "Bootlicker," a 27-minute long narrative comedy about a narcissistic party-loving college student working on a project for a film production class while trying to articulate his artistic philosophy to anyone who will listen (including some who would rather not). The student, performed by Jesse himself, gets inspired by a TikTok video critiquing the environmental impact of farms, which leads the character to create a naive avant-garde doc-essay exposé of a local flower farm. In spite of the character's outsized confidence in his own brilliance, his film gets harshly critiqued by his classmates, who see through its flimsy premise and pretentious tone.

14. MAESTRO: THE PATH OF THUNDER
Director/Writer/Producer: Huseynaga Aslanov
Country of Origin: Azerbaijan

Synopsis: This film takes us on a remarkable journey into the life of Fuad Ibrahimov. As a child, he grew up in Shusha (Karabakh), where the sounds of gunfire and helicopters were a constant backdrop, forcing him to seek refuge in basements. But despite this harsh reality, Fuad's passion for music led him to a different kind of sound—the sound of an orchestra. Today, he is not just a survivor but a celebrated conductor, leading the Azerbaijan State Symphony Orchestra, the Munich New Philharmonic, and the Baku Chamber Orchestra. This is the story of how one man transformed the noise of war into the harmony of music, proving that the human spirit can rise above even the most difficult circumstances.

15. Scum Of The Earth
Directors: Dylan Stav & Will Cheston
Writers: Dylan Stav & Will Cheston
Producers: Dylan Stav, Will Cheston & Nin Meyboom
Country of Origin: Canada

Synopsis: Four friends and bandmates struggle with their direction and purpose as they age in the hardcore music scene. With a last ditch attempt to make it as a band, they find themselves stranded with no money in the middle of nowhere. Searching for glory in all the wrong places, they end up finding a mysterious book. When read aloud, it possesses their leader. Now struggling to survive, these losers have to fight to become the unlikely heroes they never were. Now, not only their own futures, but the fate of the entire world is in their incompetent hands.

Scum of the Earth is an exploration of how the toxic individuals who identify with the hardcore punk & metal scenes would react when faced with "true evil.