Laughing So We Don’t Cry: Women and Humour in Film

Humour evokes joy and complicity, suspending reality for a moment and inviting us to see it through different eyes—in cinema, this suspension becomes a shared experience. At the same time, through its ability to critically observe everyday life, exaggerate behaviours, and expose human and social flaws, humour can also break down barriers, and become a powerful tool for communication and denunciation. In cinema made by women, this force takes on a particular dimension, often revealing itself as a gesture of protest.

This film programme proposes to explore the films of women who have used humour to challenge expectations, transforming adversity into creative impulse and choosing to laugh—and make others laugh—as a form of expression.

Since cinema’s early days, female filmmakers have found in comedy a space for experimentation and freedom, even in a medium historically dominated by men. Today, we are experiencing a moment of renewed brilliance, with works by female directors and artists gaining greater visibility in cinema, visual arts, and pop culture. It is at this intersection between past and present that this film programme takes place, through films by directors such as Mabel Normand, Lina Wertmüller, Sarah Maldoror, Chantal Akerman and Martine Syms.

“Laughing So We Don’t Cry” brings together a collection of works that address themes that have run throughout this cinematic tradition: the body, friendship, love, desire, and the subversion of social norms and female stereotypes. Crossing aesthetics and genres, from satire to absurdity, from performance to social comedy, these creators show that humour can be a feminist gesture of emancipation, carrying the freedom to make and unmake reality, and imagine other futures—whilst having a lot of fun.

Curated by Martha Kirszenbaum, Lídia Queirós and Joana de Sousa