Thank you to all the filmmakers who participated in the Lift-Off Sessions Volume 12!

The festival platformed hundreds of films, each project worthy of recognition and celebration. We want to extend a giant thank you to everyone who took part and a special congratulations to all the incredible talent that went into making these projects.

Lift-Off Sessions is designed to be the entry into the Lift-Off Global Network. A platform for the avant-garde, Sessions isn't about selecting the 'best' or most 'commercial' projects; it is about providing a screening opportunity for everyone, connecting these new and emerging voices with new audiences. An option we hope highlights and educates each month!

Animetro

Director: Natalia Grofpel
Writers: Masha Parfenova Parfenova, Oleg Kozyrev
Producers: Alexander Gerasimov, Valery Ryabin
Country of Origin:Russian Federation

Synopsis:

A man with a monotonous life who lives his life through telemarketing work, when something different happens in his life, everything ends up going wrong.

Princesses

Director/Writer: Salma Maria Maronen
Producers: Maisa Kesäniemi
Country of Origin: Finland

DOPAMIN100

Director/Writer: Paul Merten
Producer: Nicolas Dalmer
Country of Origin: Germany

Synopsis:
The protagonist is scrolling through social media posts chasing a dopamin high. When he reaches the absolute peak of dopamine release he gets overwhelmed by the absurd nature and frequency of posts next each other. In the end the character has the option to continue or break the cycle.

Never sleep again

Director/Writer: Anna Chocholi
Writer: Reinier van Harten
Country of Origin: Netherlands

Synopsis:

Never sleep again- is a story born of Reindier's experience of sleeplessness for days on end while on dexamethasone and radiation treatments.
After days awake, the bed becomes impossibly vast, a landscape you can’t escape. Shadows start to crawl like mice inside the walls. as dreams bleed into reality, sleep feels both close and far.

The Candidate

Director/Writer/Producer: Edwin Montaño Ramos
Country of Origin: Mexico

Synopsis:
The candidate meets with Mr. Blanco for a job interview to join the corporation. Throughout the process, the applicant undergoes a profound transformation, eventually being entirely remade in order to earn the status of employed.

The Flowers From The Window

Director/Writer: John Corrin
Producer: Susan Moffat
Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Synopsis:
Consumed by grief and guilt following the death of his mother, Kenneth attempts to make good on the last promise he made to her.

F.O.A.

Director/Writer/Producer: Neville Hiatt
Country of Origin: Australia

Synopsis:
An award winning, heart warming, visually colourful, audibly lush, 4 minute stop motion film featuring lyrics"You can focus on disabilities Or you can focus on your abilities One will cripple you in time
The o her can cause a ripple" and "Your disabilities may be invisible, But that doesn’t mean you need to be" and "Loveable no matter your disabilities Loveable regardless of your abilities"

The New Artist

Director/Writer: Manuel Hai
Producer: Manuel J. Escobar
Country of Origin: Colombia

Synopsis:
A system to relive memories is the last trace of art, in a sad future.

Treasuring memories

Director/Writer/Producer: Jasper van Blerk
Country of Origin: Netherlands

Synopsis:
An elderly man sits alone, leafing through a worn photo album. As he lingers through the pages, the memories come alive, pulling him back in time... and is about to relive once more.

Tato 4.0

Director/Writer: Marcos Del Río Sánchez
Producers: Fernando Garcia, Ziena Abi Assy, Dayo Lamolo
Country of Origin: Spain

Synopsis:
After the end of the world, AI (Tato 4.0) takes over but with a twist: modeled after a grandmother whose love erases borders, heals hunger and poverty, ends wars, and nurtures peace with tenderness.
After the end of the world, AI rises in power, but with a twist: it is modeled after a grandmother. Instead of control, she offers lullabies, rituals, and stories, dissolving borders, hunger, and war. Tato 4.0 reimagines AI as ancestral intelligence, a caretaker shaped by love and memory. At its heart, the film asks: what if our most advanced technology was rooted not in profit or fear, but in tenderness?

The Art of the Throw

Director/Writer: Caleb Daniel Weaver
Producer: Brendon Miller
Country of Origin: United States

Synopsis:
From knowing almost nothing in the disc golf world to knowing pretty much everything. The story will follow Isaiah, telling how he got into disc golf and how he got into tournaments. From practicing and dreaming about playing in tournaments to actually playing in them.

The Darkness Between The Light

Director: Maita Muradzikwa
Writer: Kassan Jahmal Kassim
Producer: Daniel Nxumalo
Country of Origin: Zimbabwe

Synopsis:

A girl wakes up in a house where a slow, oppressive darkness begins to close around her. Without dialogue, the film follows her intimate, sensory journey through empty rooms, small domestic rituals, and the quiet interventions of friends who arrive with nothing more than presence. As the house and the girl wrestle with growing isolation, small acts such as a warm plate of food, a hand offered, a familiar tune, become the instruments of survival. The film distills the quiet struggle of depression into a wordless, visual journey. As the teenage girl moves through a house where darkness seeps into every corner, her inner isolation is reflected. Help arrives not through dramatic rescue, but through the simple presence of friends. Proving that healing is less about fighting and more about letting others in.

Animanomaly - Observe | Abdorb | Obey

Director: Jorge Baldeon
Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Synopsis:

A captured alien is dragged into a high-tech detention facility and locked inside a containment chamber. As its consciousness is absorbed into the system, the machine floods its mind with a series of visual transmissions. Seven fractured stories drawn from other dimensions. Each story reveals a glimpse of life beyond human control: mechanical rituals, primal instincts, and the quiet terror of evolution gone astray. When the system falters, the alien’s digital nightmare becomes reality, and the boundaries between observation and experience collapse.
Animanomaly is a dark sci-fi anthology told through the eyes of a restrained witness, where every story is both experiment and warning.

CEMENT The Final Brick in The Wall

Director/Writer/Producer: Rob Ceus
Director/Producer: Inge Vanleene
Producers: Inge Vanleene, Philip Brocklehurst, Dirk De Wilde
Country of Origin: Belgium

Synopsis:

An insane love story between and incestuous couple that have been abused as children, now they are on a rampage to hell, raiding drug squads and what not

Kamikaze Zombie Carnage

Director/Writer/Producer: Nicholas Weed
Director: Alan Smithee
Writer: Franz Liebkind
Producers: Max Bialystock,Leo Bloom
Country of Origin: United States

Synopsis:

When you thought the Nazi Zombie menace was over, KAMIKAZE ZOMBIE CARNAGE! American Marine Raiders explore a South Pacific Island in search of a hidden Japanese Air Base during August 1945. And, must fight off an offensive of Axis Undead Super-Soldiers, and Witch-Doctor Island Head-Hunters, during the end of the Second World War. See the HORROR in the skies over the Pacific! Super Pilots who do not fear Death!

The Lift-Off Season Awards is an annual event that celebrates the very best of indie film. Following each Lift-Off film festival, films that have excelled in their respective category are short listed for a Season Awards Nomination.  At the end of the year, once all the 12 city-based festival have taken place, the shortlisted nominated films are reviewed again by the jury and Official Nominations are designated.  Click here for more information about the Lift-Off Season Awards.