Thank you to all the filmmakers who participated in the Lift-Off Sessions Volume 9!
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!
Jury's Overall Winner
Mother
Director: Yoga Mahendra Pratama
Writer: Almer Herlambang Rakhman
Producer: Esther Grace Maylania
Country of Origin: Indonesia
Synopsis:
An elderly mother lives with someone she has loved and cared for all her life, a soul burdened by mental illness. She protects her, tends to her, and loves her deeply. But as the mother's own health begins to deteriorate, the one she once sheltered finds herself adrift in a world she can no longer understand.
Season Award #16 Shortlist
Audience Choice Winners
LOVE BEGINS WITH FORGIVENESS
Director/Writer/Producer: Kinga Paulina Wolinska
Country of Origin: Spain
Synopsis:
This film is a meditative, emotional, and spiritual story inspired by the ancient Hawaiian practice of Ho’oponopono — a path of love, forgiveness, and inner cleansing.
Through poetic narration and symbolic imagery, ''Love Begins with Forgiveness'' invites you to:
Reconnect with your inner child
Release generational trauma
Transform painful memories
Return to peace, presence, and truth
Moment of Time - The Musical
Director/Writer/Producer: Konstantin Vigotckii
Country of Origin: Serbia
Synopsis:
The musical / pop-rock opera “Moment of Time” about the paradoxes of time and space by “Raccoon the Last” project.
The man wakes up in a sunny meadow, does not remember how he got there or what his name is. He goes into the forest and meets various forest dwellers, plunging with them into the secrets of the interaction of time and space. The entire plot is told through a variety of digital animation and 23 songs.
Nothing Solid
Director/Writer/Producer: Sharisse Naomi Zeroonian
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis:
What's causing twenty-five-year-old Nikki's Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome? Anxiety. What's causing her anxiety? Conflict with her parents, moving out, work issues, and general allergy to growing up. With her physical and mental health both hanging by a thread, she's faced with a choice: stay helpless, or confront what - and who - is bothering her head-on.
Unsiz Jol
Director/Writer/Producer: Zhansaya Ospan
Country of Origin: Kazakhstan
Synopsis:
The film opens with a phone call that shatters everything: Ilyas and Aliya learn that Ilyas’s parents have died. This moment breaks the fragile stillness of their family life, unleashing a quiet storm of grief that neither of them can escape. Aliya tries to remain strong for the sake of their children, but sorrow seeps into her every gesture. Ilyas, ever composed, buries his emotions deep, creating a silent distance that begins to unravel their bond. Seven year old Zere, sensing the change, picks up a small camera and begins to document their days a child’s attempt to hold on to something slipping away. Her younger brother, Alem, is too young to understand, but he feels the shift in the air.
UNS.
Director/Writer: Markus Xavier Stokes
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis:
UNS. Is the film for any person who has ever found themselves feeling down,alone, or lost as a person. No matter how far you fall you can always pick yourself back up and continue to be unstoppable.
Eaternal Dead End - The Melting Passenger
Director/Writer: Ziyaad Jina
Country of Origin: South Africa
Synopsis:
A quirky and bizarre animation; telling the gross, funny and sometimes terrifying tales of a man trapped in an alternate dimension. He crossed the lines between food and the divine and now needs to pay the price. His only option... crawling of his reality, out one taxi fare at a time.
Era of Lupus
Director/Writer: Fernanda Ozório
Writers: Giordana Piaia, Roberto Richetti, Juliano Pfutzenreuter Nunes
Producer: Giordana Piaia
Country of Origin: Brazil
Synopsis:
An individual experiences the evolution of Lupus, a metaphor for a decaying society. Their journey, from ancestral eras to vibrant metropolises and neon forests, reveals the manifestation of an entity and the encounter with the invisible.
The Visitor
Director/Writer: Savas Alpaltun
Producer: Marta Zukowska-Sherabayani
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
Karim, a sharp tongued but slightly shady, shop owner is visited by Azrael, the Angel of Death. What begins as a sceptical exchange turns into a surreal battle of wits, as Karim scrambles to outtalk fate - until a startling truth changes everything.
The Visitor - A Holistic Healing Experience
Director/Writer/Producer: Pascal Andres
Directors: Toni Mijac, Erik Rülicke, Hans Przybilla
Producers: Hans Przybilla, Alexandre Weber Martins
Country of Origin: Croatia, Germany, Turkey
Synopsis:
The immersive experimental music concept film explores topics of loneliness & depression stemming from self-induced narratives; the power of shamanic rituals & plant-medicine and the shadow work they encourage; ego-death and the breaking of old shackles; the warm fire of community; and finally the one universal truth, as told by The Visitor: "You are loved“.
MY FATHER (the MOVIE)
Director/Writer/Producer: Kenneth Richard Everett, Jr, Valerie Denise Jones
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis:
My Father is not just a film I wanted to make—it is a story I needed to tell. Growing up, I watched mental illness tear through my family. My father battled bipolar disorder until it claimed his life, and now I raise a daughter who faces the same struggle. These experiences have carved wounds that never fully heal, but they also gave me a lens through which I see the world: one shaped by pain, survival, and an unrelenting search for hope.
Whispers & Roars)
Director/Writer: Dwiti Rao
Producer: Vandita Jain
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis:
Whispers & Roars is an intimate, experimental portrait of heartbreak’s aftermath, told entirely through voiceover and visceral imagery. After discovering her boyfriend’s betrayal, a young woman retreats to her small balcony- her stage, her confessional, her cage. Between drags of cigarettes, sips of wine, and erratic bursts of dance, she battles the voices in her head- the whispers of doubt, the roars of anger. Over one night, her ritual of smoke, movement, and thought slowly shifts, by the time she steps into the shower, cigarette still in hand, she’s not healed, but she’s learning to see herself with clear eyes- hurt, yet ready to live on her own terms.
Lift-Off Season Awards #16
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.