This article was updated on Monday, April 15 at 8:04 p.m.
“Everyone say micro-penis festival!” called a member of Mother Figure Comedy Collective as they held up a phone to take a picture of the crowd.
“Micro-penis festival!” the crowd shouted back, laughing and squeezing in together after the Micro Film Festival on Thursday, April 4th, in Arnhold Hall.
The film festival began at 8:00 p.m. in a small room on the 9th floor packed with chairs and people. New School students enjoyed chips and soda as they conversed, finally settling down to begin the screening.
Members of the club and others collectively submitted 15 “beautiful, beautiful videos,” as described by Sam Levy, host of the festival and one of Mother Figure’s leaders (although there is no center president of the club, the entire organization is decentralized and communal). The show began with a reading of an original poem by Nicole Desmond, senior, about Levy asking her for a movie submission. As the ensuing laughter wore down, the videos began.
All films were filmed only a week before the festival was hosted, and the 15 videos submitted by New School students were supremely different. While most were ironic with lots of sound effects that perfectly encapsulate Lang student/Gen-Z humor, some included original songs, animation, and extended bits that were loved by all.
This was Mother Figure’s second film festival and the first one with a time constraint, making it more cohesive and less serious. The previous film festival allowed members to submit any past video they had ever made.
Started in 2023, Mother Figure is a community-based club at The New School focused on comedy, although that’s not their main goal. “You don’t have to care about comedy, you just have to want to hang out with other people,” said Nora Iammarino, one of the three Mother Figure’s organization leaders. The comedy club meets on Thursdays, with meetings consisting of improv, writer’s rooms, and other fun things the leaders have thought up to do during the week.
“It’s like one week I’m thinking about Girl Scouts, and then the theme of the meeting will be Girl Scouts and we’ll make patches and stuff,” says Lily Shafer, another organization leader. Levy, Iammarino, and Shafer are all roommates, which helps them run the club in a smooth and cohesive way.
Currently, about 40-50 people come to each show and about 25 regularly attend Thursday meetings. The shows and meetings act as casual settings for budding comedians to test their new work and make friends.
It’s in that same headspace that the Micro Film Festival began. “Officially raw and real as heck,” by Levy’s description, the festival is a way for students to get rid of the constraints put on by a school demanding creativity and just “kind of do whatever we want and make videos that aren’t super up our ass or anything, just have fun.”
The club announced the festival a week before Thursday, which gives a time constraint and “vibe—I want people to make a video as fast as possible, as shitty as possible,” said Levy.
“Everyone can be a part of it in their own way, with different mediums and time constraints, and everyone has the same resources—like you have an iPhone and a week, what’s the best thing you can make?” added Iammarino.
One of the films, dubbed “The Definition of Micro Film” by Levy as he announced it, was a vertical video of the artist drinking from a red Solo cup with background conversation for less than ten seconds. The video had no plot, stage, set, characters, or props, yet it worked—it told the story of the partygoer in conversation.
Another film was a screen-recorded PowerPoint presentation titled “Top 5 Movie Sounds,” where the audience was subjected to the “bruh” sound effect for every “movie sound” (No one was complaining— each “bruh” elicited more and more laughter). An original song, “A Song for Suess,” was a parody of Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” featuring Dr. Suess references.
Each of the club’s leaders submitted their own movie as well—Iammarino’s a self-aware love letter typed out, with organ music played by her boyfriend swelling in the background, Shafer’s an ode to Sprite, and Levy’s a condensed version of an 18-minute film where he played a meek college professor just trying to get through the syllabus.
The club plans to host more Micro Film festivals in the future and is working on starting a zine, which they encouraged members to submit to at the festival.
“Community’s really hard to find at a school like this, and so I like coming to clubs so I can see all my friends once a week, and we really want more people to come,” says Shafer.
Mother Figure meets on Thursdays every week and is always looking for new members to add to their club. They also plan to host another Micro Film Festival before the school year is over, so bring your best jokes to Arnhold Hall and meet your new favorite comedians—they’d love to have you!
Correction: a previous version of this article included an incorrect count of show and meeting attendance, the article has been updated to reflect the correct approximations.
Correction: a previous version of this article stated Mother Figure’s most recent show was their first themed one, when it was their second themed show. The article has been updated to reflect this.
Correction: A previous version of this article included an incorrect spelling of one of the club leader’s names. The article has been updated with the correct spelling.