Laughing for 30 Years - Over the Fence Short Comedy Film Festival

FSN’s Gayle O’Leary attended this year’s Over the Fence Short Comedy Film Festival night held at Luna SX Fremantle on Friday 29 May 2026 with a friend. Here’s her report!

It is astonishing to consider that this grassroots festival has run since 1996, successfully pulling together actors, filmmakers, and themes of all kinds. From new to experienced, from Australia to Russia. 620+ screenings and over 121 awards won during that time!

This year’s program featured 15 short comedy films, each “capturing a different slice of the wonderfully chaotic rhythm of Life, as it Goes!” as they aptly describe it.

Filmmakers capture the spirit perfectly with humour as “one of the most powerful tools for change.” The festival is “a beacon for like‑minds who see the absurdity and bizarre humour in life,” and in challenging times, “we must laugh, laugh, laugh.”

Celebrate weird and dark comedies in a festival devoted to celebrating them – for 30 years! The films embrace the chaos, the beauty and the bizarre rhythm of simply trying to keep up, urging us to keep it going. ‘Life, as it Goes!’

15 films from around the globe.

My favourites for this year are:

Surprise (a birthday celebration gone heinously wrong),

Spit (a date night gone wrong), and

Dead Roommate (cohabitation gone wrong?)

But the choice wasn’t easy!

I highly recommend you check them out and then come join us at the Dark Comedy Film Festival this November.

More information about Over the Fence can be found on their website here.