Movies We Like: Funny Women

Very often when we watch submissions, we find ourselves wondering if the filmmakers (almost always male) have ever met a live female human being.  The roles for women in short comedy are often either non-existent, insulting, or not very interesting, while the male parts get all the laughs.  See this blog post for a short essay on this subject.

We'd like to take a moment here to post some films we like, by both male and female filmmakers, that feature strong, funny lead roles for women.  It's not that hard a thing to do, but surprisingly few people out there making short comedy films seem to bother.

TURKEY SHOOT Ramona Floyd (who actually knows how to shoot) was randomly chosen from our audience to star in this movie.  We had such a fun time with Ramona that we made her a producer of our festival! WHY ULA LA IS SO GOSH DARN CUTE A movie by Nic Holland in which the woman gets to be the funny one while the guy is the straight man. HOW TO BE POPULAR An amazing film by John Dilley that chronicles the experiences of popular girls in high school.  Done with honesty and heart.  Unfortunately only the trailer is online.  Here it is: BACK TO THE FUSCIA The woman drives the action in Toby Robert's poetic comedy from the UK. YULIA Antonine Arditti's story about true love and travel to another dimension. YELLOWTAIL Artist and animator Laurie Rosenwald usually features herself in her work, so we're not sure if it exactly applies here, but we like her work so much we're including it anyway. JUST TALK Eliza Skinner's charming movie about dating shows that nice women and crazy women can both make for good roles in a short comedy film. MONKEY PANCAKES Victor Varnado's movie about a woman and a monkey. Lastly, we can't list strong roles for women without mentioning Signe Bamane's work.  This Latvian animator has made many wonderful short films with women protagonists.  You can see some of them on her website, and find out more about the Teat Beat of Sex series here.