2024 Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference

Shorts Program 14: Produced Digital Series 1
TRT 95 MIN

Girls Aren't Funny
(USA, 20 MIN)

Writer: Jasia Ka, Amamah Sardar
Director: Jasia Ka
Cast: Amamah Sardar, Zubi Ahmed, Sadhana Singhal, Caleb Eberhardt

Created and directed by Jasia Ka, GIRLS AREN’T FUNNY is a ground-breaking drama-comedy series that interweaves the hilarious, powerful stories of three incredible young women and non-binary comedians in NYC as they take on the male-dominated comedy industry. The series is based on real experiences and features an all star cast of real-life comedians. The pilot episode introduces Amamah as she attempts to balance her blossoming comedy career and her conservative Muslim Pakistani family’s expectations back at home.

I Need Your Love
(USA, 28 MIN)

Writer: Walker Kalan
Director: Camille Trust, Walker Kalan
Cast: Camille Trust, Inès Nassara, Athan Chekas, Ben Becher

I Need Your Love is a bittersweet comedy about pop singer Camille Trust’s struggle to make a name for herself in New York’s cutthroat music scene—from sleazy producers and vengeful Swifties to heartbreak and self-sabotage. It’s raw. It’s messy. And most of it actually happened.

Sasha Counters!
(Russia, 28 MIN)

Writer: Anna Zaytseva, Daria Maslovskaya
Director: Anna Zaytseva
Cast: Anna Potebnya, Alikhan Nurzhauov, Azamat Nigmanov, Nastasya Kerbengen

Teenagers, boxer Sasha from Moscow and Kazakh rapper Mamazhan, involuntarily become step siblings and do everything to get rid of each other.

This film can be seen inShorts Program 14: Produced Digital Series

Stories from my Gay Grandparents
(Canada, 8 MIN)

Writer: Perrie Voss, Scott Farley
Director: J Stevens
Cast: James Kall, Jane Moffat, Perrie Voss, Scott Farley

After a near-death experience lights a flame within Grandma and Grandpa, they decide to grab life by the boas and tell the world their deepest secret: They're both gay. Having lived under the guise of a straight relationship for decades, these two life-long best friends have been each other’s beards for 50 years. And hunny, these beards are giving us Abraham Lincoln chin-curtain realness. But now they’re coming out of the closet, ditching their small-town hetero life, and going after their big gay dreams. First stop, the big city, to learn “how to be gay” from the best gay people they know: their grandchildren! It’s a big gay family after all (there must be something in the water.) Mason and Rebecca-Michelle help their grandparents maneuver the queer dating scene, dating apps, queer fashion, and even a gay dodgeball league. It’s a late-in-life coming-out story about family, marriage, friendship, acceptance and empowering one another to love authentically, no matter what age you are.

Playground
(USA, 16 MIN)

Writer: Kendra Alesha McGee
Director: Kendra Alesha McGee
Cast: Kelcie Russell, Adora Morris, Sebastian Vasquez, Cole McHugh

Playground is a Web Series that tells the story of Alisha, a rambunctious fifth grader, who must navigate the trials and tribulations of recess insanity through challenges of strength, wit, Nerf war, and boxing.