Tokyo Lift-Off Film Festival 2023 - Network Round Features

Thursday 8th June - Wednesday 14th June

1.

Inter-Continental Bunker Mission (I.C.B.M.)
Dir. Julian Vogel
Sweden
Logline: Two friends without a clue set out on a journey to survive the end of the world. An atomic cocktail of journalistic, archival, and D.I.Y. Bunker Building, I.C.B.M. addresses the ever growing survivalism trend, the personal price of survival, and the perpetual state of preparedness the world has found itself in since the birth of the atomic bomb.

2.

MONSTERS
Dir. Aksel Rifman
Morocco
Logline: Three masked men: The Boss, The Brute, & The Loser attack rich man (Haj Ahmed) in his vacation home and hold his wife (Naima) and daughter (Silyia) as hostages asking them for the whereabouts of their money.
Haj Ahmed, who was not at home at the time of the invasion, shows up and finds his family beaten and tied up. After a little back and forth between Ahmed & The Boss, Ahmed ends up beaten and tied up as well as experiencing more violence. The family ends up running away to the second floor of the house to hide and access a gun. However, they are not safe there.
While a hidden maid tries to stop the violence and the Loser tries to keep The Brute under control more violence erupts and betrayals complicate the situation further.
What started as a simple theft ended up being a Matroschka of secrets. No one is safe nor innocent in this house.

3.

In The Bones
Dirs. Kelly Duane de la Vega, Zandashé Brown
USA
Logline: In the Bones is a lyrical documentary that explores the personal and political by interweaving the lives of 12 characters living in Mississippi during a legislative session in which equal pay for equal work and abortion rights are being decided. Although set in three distinct regions of Mississippi, In the Bones is a much broader exploration of our culture, an unsettling portrait of America that shines a light on the weight women live under in this country and also the resilience expressed in everyday acts of survival.

4.

Evinced
Dir. Richeler Aladin
USA
Logline: An anonymous user posting prediction videos on the country's future goes viral as they end up being right. However, things take a turn when the masked user must get the help from the detective that's hunting him down.

5.

RENT-A-MAN
Dir. Rafal Zlak
USA
Logline: A seasoned gangster is a debt collector for the underworld who tracks marks with gambling debts. One unexpectedly dies, the other escapes. Big Slick, his boss texts him the Rent-a-Man ad so he decides on a conniving plan where our story begins. Jackie the gangster, and Dillon the Rent-a-Man, play a stylistically subtle yet dangerous game of cat-and-mouse while hiking Valley of Fire State Park outside Las Vegas until an ultimate future-changing twist!

6.

POEM
Dir. Robert Fritz
USA
Logline: A master poet loses her muse but tries to pass on her art and craft to a young talented poet.