Paris Lift-Off Film Festival 2023 - Network Round Shorts
Wednesday 27th September - Wednesday 4th October
1.
Nine Months to November
Dir. Hazel Jones
USA
Logline: A 16 year old girl navigates an unexpected pregnancy and its impact on her relationship with the people and world around her.
2.
Birds of Memory
Dirs. PIN-YU LIN, YUN GAO
Taiwan
Logline:This is a process of farewell. In the story, the grandmother lives in a nursing home, and her grandson often visits and accompanies her. We want to depict, through surreal scenes and visualizations, the symptoms of the grandmother losing her memory and cognitive abilities. Before the abnormalities appear in the grandmother's world, those memories and abilities will transform into glowing birds and leave her body..
3.
Lovebirds & Ladyloves
Dir. Léon Bodier
UK
Logline: After leaving Leeds with her singer fiancé, a budding artist finds herself bartending at the Covent Garden Jazzbar where he now performs. A gallerist who frequents the bar helps Emily realize her own artistic aspirations, prompting them to take up space in her career plans. With this decision, the controlling and toxic aspects of her relationship with her fiancé become quickly more apparent. Desperately seeking to regain control over her life, the young bartender is more vulnerable to other abusive men seeking to take advantage of her naivety. Finding strength through the support of colleagues will be key to Emily's ability to move forward.
4.
STEP
Dir. Roxanne McIver
USA
Logline: Music video that celebrates black excellence surrounding black love, black marriage and black dancing.
5.
SIS
Dir. Julie Lindhardt
Denmark
Logline: The film portrays a divorce experienced through the eyes of the child. In the film we follow the young girl Vigga and in her fight to save her beloved dog Sis, in the middle of her parents' ugly divorce. The short film is based on a single hour, while they are moving from Vigga's childhood home. In the middle of the move, Vigga learns that Sis cannot live with Mom or Dad, but will instead go to a "nice place on the countryside". This is catalyst of Vigga's desperate fight to save Sis. In the midst of her struggle, her parents must meet for the first time in months.
6.
UNDER [SI:]
Dir. Morgan Le Faucheur
France
Logline: UNDER [SI:] recounts the birth of the underwater ecomuseum in Cannes, near the southern shore of Île Sainte- Marguerite. From stopover to stopover, the documentary goes to meet the protagonists and the places that participated in the project. Produced and directed by ALMO Film, the short film offers an intimate look and a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process of British sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor.
From the first castings of the faces of Cannes habitants in 2018 to the immersion of the 6 colossal statues in 2021, UNDER [SI:] highlights for the first time the stages of creation of the project, which has established itself as real logistical and ecological challenge. But the narrative proposal of the documentary UNDER [SI:]
goes further. It explores the faces of Jason deCaires Taylor'spolymorphic work in Cannes...
7.
To Pluto
Dir. Yen-Ju Lee
Taiwan
Logline: A cancer patient who is looking for redemption forms an unexpected bond with a nurse who is questioning her life choices.
'To Pluto', starring Golden Horse Award winner Ying-Xuan Hsieh and Hong Kong Film Awards winner Chia-Nien Chang (Tai-Bo), uses two astronomical events, the exclusion of Pluto from the planetary system, and the completion of the space probe New Horizon, as metaphors for the inner transformation of the two characters.
8.
The How Of Collage
Dir. Luke Danniells
Ireland
Logline: Documentary about David Newton an American artist living in Ireland. The documentary shows David in his studio creating artwork collage through found scraps of paper and found objects. Two cameras were used for the film one Black Magic for clean clear shots and one Sony Handycam for a more aged grainy look, the thinking behind this was to give the film a collage feel. The documentary also has an original soundtrack written and performed by Jason Cooper, drummer with British band The Cure, and session Musician Oliver Kraus.
9.
Can you hurry
Dir. Igor Lewicki
USA
Logline: An anxious and depressed Mia lingers at the edge of a rooftop; high above the Chicago streets. As she gathers her thoughts and contemplates her final moments of life, a voice chimes in from behind her, "Can you Hurry?"
10.
DARK CELL
Dir. Jean-Michel Tari
USA
Logline: Two convicts in an orbital prison are doing what they usually do, which is to say, not much.
Suddenly, two panicked guards armed to the teeth burst into their cell.
The guards tell them that the orbital prison has just been invaded by blood-thirsty zombie-type creatures.
If they want to survive, their only solution is to eject their cell and return to Earth.
But when the ejection order is entered into the computer, it refuses it. The cell, designed for two occupants only, now holds four people.
There can only be two lucky winners… and there’s not much time to pick them.
11.
Guillty
Dir. Jules Thenier
France
Logline: Martin prepares his premiere on set the next morning. The deadline is important!
Jeff, a very old friend whom he has lost sight of for several years, comes to see him at his appartment. Very quickly he realizes that Jeff has not changed and that his so-called "unexpected" visit is self-serving and compromising. Jeff has hidden something in his cellar without his knowledge, and needs him to get rid of it.
12.
Emma
Dir. Eloïse Guimard
France
Logline: Seventy-year-old Emma paints every day in the hope of remembering the face of the woman she loves, who died in a fire some years earlier. One day, and the days after, she wakes up covered in fresh paint, not knowing how it happened.
13.
Watercolor Rose
Dir. Dandan Lang
France
Logline: Rose and Jiang Yu are old friends who have known each other since college, but they have very different personalities, Jiang Yu is calm and sensible while Rose is passionate and emotional. They come to Europe togerther, Jiang Yu lives in a small town called Kaiserslautern and Rose lives in Paris. However, Rose is sick of the lonely life in Paris, she decides to go back China. Before she leaves, she comes to Kaiserslautern to say goodbye to Jiang Yu. During their time together, Rose finds out that she has feeling for her ......
