London Lift-Off Film Festival 2017

Where: Arthouse

When: Monday 4 of December to Saturday 9 of December

About the makers:

• Lift-Off Global Network is an organisation encompassing worldwide live screening events, distributing initiatives; a seasonal awards ceremony, and an ever-growing and active community of indie film creators. For more information, visit their website.
• Arthouse is an independent cinema and live performance space created by local people. They want to celebrate racial and genre equality, focusing on social injustices and giving a voice to the voiceless. For more information of their upcoming events visit: http://www.arthousecrouchend.co.uk.

The experience: As I was a volunteer for the event, I had the chance to understand and live the experience in a different way, especially because I was there as audience, but also as a guider of the people. My duties were to cheer the audience coming to the event and explain them where to go when the screenings started, and from time-to-time answer questions about the event or the venue. As the rest of the audience, I had the chance to rate de films and decide which one was the winner of the night, so that it could be showed in other countries; this is part of the philosophy of the Lift-Off Global Network, which I found really cool. I also got the chance to interview one of the filmmakers about their process of creation. The interview was published in the Lift-Off web page, if you feel curious about it.

The festival was held in a small and independent cinema, called Arthouse, in North London. The place was chilled and felt like home with a bar and some tables for people to drink something while waiting for their movie. Because of how the festival was organized, the audience and the filmmakers could interact together in an informal environment. Due to the amount of people in the lobby of the venue, most of us remain standing. There was a banner with the logo of the Lift-Off so that people could approach and have a picture in front of it, this was the red carpet part of the event and all the filmmakers were asked to have a picture there, but it was for everyone.

The screenings were dived into two, the first part had eight short-films, and the second part was a long-film. Everything was rated by the audience, following a form that questioned about the originality, direction, cinematography, performances, structure, an overall score and any comments you wanted to add. I found this very useful, because it made you think about what you just watched and it also empowered the audience by having the chance of being part of the jury, which is not very common in the art industry. The programme of the event was in this form so that people could scan the code and see the screenings of the evening and also the other day’s films.

As I was a volunteer, I had the chance to watch all the short films and the long film. I must say that the people that apply for this festival are incredibly talented and creative; the use of the resources and the performances were absolutely surprising. I found it very difficult to decide which short film I preferred the most and I strongly believe that this talks about the quality of the things they show to people and the selection process they make before the event.

In terms of the event, even if it was informal, I found it quite disorganized, which was surprising because this is the first time that happened to me in London. The films started around 15-20 minutes late and there was not a very good control about tickets and rating forms. Being a volunteer was a bit confusing, because we did not receive enough explanation about our duties during the evening and some of the persons that arrived to watch the films were trying to find their way between the amount of people. Inside the screening area, I found out that there was not enough advertisement for the event, because most of the people inside were friends and family of the filmmakers. The few persons that went to the event seemed to enjoy it and took an active participation while rating the films.

Even with these difficulties, I highly recommend the Lift-Off festival, because you get the chance to watch amazing films from indie filmmakers around the world and to participate in the selection process of the festival for the movies to be screened in other countries, which makes it fun and exiting.