My love for comedies has no bounds. Typically I watch films to escape, and I realize that seems pretty limiting considering all the documentaries, dramas and thrillers out there but comedies will forever be my first love. Over the last year as I binge watched like I’ve never binged before, I started to realize Netflix originals, new releases and even HBO are all full of dramas and downers, murders and destruction, depression and angst. I welcome any and all stories, but during a pandemic I don’t find comfort in reality or looking down the barrel of our dismal ecological future. Can a girl just laugh? Damn. The three movies I’m going to talk about below may have had a little strife here and there but they were just fun and heartfelt, exactly what I needed right now.

Official Competition films There is No Evil and Under the Open Sky had found a perpetual spot on my “watch later” queue, but when I saw that they secured top spots among the audience awards, I knew that I had to use the waning hours of SIFF Privilege to make them my Closing Night double feature (with apologies to Rosa’s Wedding).

Three SIFF documentaries to get you fired up about fighting the power.

SIFF’s midnight screenings comprise some of my favorite experiences in a movie theater (usually The Egyptian) over the last two decades. That made looking at the 2021 Fest’s crop of WTF (Weird! Terrifying! Fantastic!) entries a bit of a bittersweet experience.

Three stories of women around the globe struggling against the oppressive status quo to live as their most authentic selves.

My SIFF watchlist hit a patch of coming-of-age movies over the last few days. A couple had me running for the fast-forward button, but these three A few others, though, had enough of a twist on the genre or point of view to hold my increasingly scattered attention.

Three films play with light sci-fi premises to explore different elements of the human condition.