Femme Grotesquerie
Los Angeles Filmforum presents
Femme Grotesquerie
Sunday March 8, 2026, 7:30 pm
At 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90057
Tickets: $15 general, $10 students/seniors, free for Filmforum members:
https://link.dice.fm/Xdb6ec20870f
In person: Jenny Nirgends and curator Sam Gurry
Desires that curdle.
Ambitions that molt.
Girlhood morphed into menace, myth, and power.
Femme Grotesquerie is a collection of ten contemporary experimental animation short films showcasing femininity as something unruly, excessive, and emboldened. Featuring a variety of mediums including direct animation, stop motion, and digital 2D, these films depict worlds lived, imagined, subverted, or reclaimed. Here, femininity is not decorative or contained but pushed to its edges: raw, acute, tender, funny, and volatile. From the animated porcelain puppets of On Weary Wings Go By to the glitter-bombed 16mm of Moon Cycle (2023-2024), these films stage feminine aesthetics and narratives as something to be wielded, distorted, reclaimed, and reimagined on the animators’ own terms.
Join us to delight in the animated image and that strange pleasure of watching light, rupture, and reform.
Contemporary international animated films by Justine Lai, Alice Bloomfield, Anu-Laura Tuttelberg, Amy Lockhart, Victoria Vincent, Sofia Carillo, Sophie Koko Gate, Jenny Jokela, Louise Flaherty, and Jenny Nirgends.
Notes and Program by Sam Gurry
Flyer by Jenny Nirgends
Moon Cycle (2023-24)
Moon Cycle (2023-24)
By Justine Lai
USA, 2004, 16mm, color/sound, 3 min.
“Moon Cycle is a 16mm animation based on the anime TV series Sailor Moon (1992). Using ink, marker, tape, printer toner, nail polish, and confetti, I recreate the show’s transformation sequences where schoolgirls become super heroines. This footage was reused in almost every episode, and I remember as a child feeling (but not really having language for) an anticipation and comfort from recognizing the formula. It wasn’t until I was older and producing my own work that the economy of recycling footage felt more significant.” - Lai
Larval
Larval
By Alice Bloomfield
UK, 2025, Digital, color/sound, 12 min.
“Living life in isolation, a girl dreams of luxury and beauty, fantasizing about possessing the looks of her celebrity idol and and winning the heart of her unrequited love. In a surreal, dreamlike turn of events she discovers that she should have been more careful what she wished for.” - Bloomfield
Jessica
Jessica
By Amy Lockhart
Canada, 2014, Digital, color/sound, 5 min.
“Jessica is stuck in the house with the baby - a mundane domestic tale, full of the awkward and surreal. A paper puppet and cut out animated parody of a tv sitcom pilot.” - Lockhart
On Weary Wings Go By
On Weary Wings Go By
By Anu-Laura Tuttelberg
Estonia/Lithuania, 2024, Digital, color/sound, 11 min.
“A wintry poem about the Nordic nature. The sun moves low and days get shorter. Birds fly South, porcelain animals and insects hide from the freezing wind and snow. Only a small porcelain girl wanders the abandoned landscape with no way out.” - Tuttelberg
The Last Wild Bird in Heaven
The Last Wild Bird in Heaven
By Jenny Nirgends
USA, 2024, Digital, color/sound, 7 min.
“Troubled by the death of her brother a young girl and her best friend run away from their convent school for an afternoon. After burying a dead bird the young girl realizes she must look inward for the will and the courage to carry on.” - Nirgends
Twins in Paradise
Twins in Paradise
By Victoria Vincent
USA, 2020, Digital, color/sound, 10 min.
“Twin tennis prodigies Marcy & Darcy teeter on the edge of fame, self-destruction, and the ever-present call of the void. Their synchronized swings mask a growing dissonance, between expectation and identity, brilliance and burnout. The narrative crackles like static, a charged silence before the inevitable collapse, one match away from an inferno. As the court lights dim and the world around them blurs into nothing, what remains for the sisters beyond the game, beyond the applause—beyond each other?” - Gurry
Prita Noire (Black Doll)
Prita Noire (Black Doll)
By Sofia Carillo
Mexico, 2011, Digital, color/sound, 8 min.
"A creepy tale of two sisters bonded and bound by the ties that bind: co-dependence, separation anxiety and routine” - Carillo
Slug Life
Slug Life
By Sophie Koko Gate
United Kingdom, 2018, Digital, color/sound, 7 min.
“We follow a day in the life of Tanya, a curious woman who has developed a taste for non human lovers. This time her bedroom experiments result in the creation of a beautiful giant slug. Can such a perfect creature survive in this gnarly world full of freaks and beefs?” - Gate
Dollhouse Elephant
Dollhouse Elephant
By Jenny Jokela
Finland, 2025, Digital, color/sound, 11 min.
“In a world that demands community participation, individual desires inevitably collide. A group of neighbours, each focused on their own goals, must learn to communicate and consider one another. But when small, everyday actions trigger unexpected consequences, they are forced into interactions that challenge their independence.” - Jokela
Mangittatuarjuk (The Gnawer of Rocks)
Mangittatuarjuk (The Gnawer of Rocks)
By Louise Flaherty
Canada, 2024, Digital, color/sound, 15 min.
“Two young women find a trail of colourful stones and decide to follow it, but it unwittingly leads them into danger. They become trapped within the subterranean lair of the Mangittatuarjuk. The women must use their cunning and the teachings of their elders to escape from the monster.” - Flaherty