Let’s call it like it is.

The times we live in are too fraught with rising fascism, and all sorts of other -isms, for our filmmakers to make any significant number of five-minute shorts featuring a couple of ockers getting themselves into kooky jams. For a time, that was a lively form in Australian short film, but that time may have passed.

This year’s ReelGood Film Festival — set for next Saturday, April 12th, at Lido Cinemas in Hawthorn, in the great state of Victoria — boasts a number of films that are defined as comedies, in the loosest sense of that word. They get at something blackly comic about our world, but they may tickle our brains as much as they tickle our funny bones.

Muraya Moore’s Blood Sisters has a reveal near the end that almost functions as a punchline, though it remains in the realm of the sinister the rest of the time. It examines a period of initiation in the lives of young women — girls, you’d think, though these actresses are older than that — in which sleepovers take on a sort of ritualistic quality, as the participants are introduced to each others’ best beauty secrets, even if they verge on the perverse.

The question for these girls is: How committed are they? How far will they go? And how much will they trust that everyone has their best interests in mind? And who is the strange figure for whom they are doing all this, anyway?

Carrying some thematic similarities is The Meaningless Daydreams of Augie & Celeste, in which the peer pressure among girls — actual girls this time — is just a game of tete a tete. It’s an escalating game of imagination that takes centre stage in Pernell Marsden’s film, whose low stakes start out with nothing but the joy of the two leads as they immerse themselves in a sort of backyard paradise of foliage. A scarecrow with a matinee idol’s face plays a significant role. Of course, they wouldn’t be escalating stakes if they didn’t escalate.

Marsden shoots the short with a rich film stock that recalls and 1970s or 1980s independent film, which is the perfect way to capture a story that goes off the rails as Augie begins … changing. Though perhaps not in the way you might think.

The last of the three films we’re previewing today is a bit more realistic in its blackly comic view, though this one is tinged with the melancholy of failed relationships. In This Must be Love, director Andrew Kavanaugh hints at untold layers of dysfunctional history as two parents meet in an abandoned lot near the port for an exchange of their kids at the end of a visitation. He’s in the position of weakness, clearly still pining after his ex, while she’s escorted by her current beau, a mutual acquaintance, who waits in a nearby car. Their exchange is shirty, but also indicative of the feelings that still exist.

Playing an unexpected role is the new suitor, whose shortcomings are soon revealed in both appearance and action. These are the bits that would make a person laugh, if Kavanaugh weren’t doing such a good job presenting real people who feel more tragic than tragicomic. At least the kids seem to be navigating it all pretty well.

The festival is only four days away! During which you’ll get two more previews from us. You can see the full lineup here and get your tickets here. Festival begins at 10 a.m. sharp.