If you’re looking for something out of the ordinary to shake up your 2024 Comedy Festival experience, Sh!t-faced Shakespeare is what you’re looking for. Whether you’re a fan of the bard or not, there is a universal appeal to watching an actor attempt to improve upon a four hundred year old play with the confidence that only alcohol can provide.

A patchwork quilt of genres, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera is a grimy and charismatic fairytale, and Josh O’Connor is its beating heart. 

Gentle, funny, and incredibly vulnerable, Ally Pankiw’s I Used To Be Funny is an unflinching look at the complexities and inconsistencies that accompany trauma recovery.

Where weirdness can often lose out in action films, the chaos, vibrancy, and fast-pace of Polite Society breathes new life into the genre, and serves as an excellent tone setter for what the rest of FFFA 2023 has to offer.

This is the way Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe starts — not with a bang, but with a family dramedy shrouded in visual effects and charming absurdity.