BELFAST - The Laugh Out Loud Short Film Festival is coming to Belfast this Wednesday, July 3, and it is not promising to be a traditional film festival. In fact, it is anything but.

According to its website: Unlike the snooty content prominent at most conventional film festivals, our films won’t challenge you to be a deep thinker or ponder the man’s inhumanity to man. Hardly.  Our filmmakers seem to focus on aspects of everyday life that average people can relate to; social media, dating, bodily functions, human sexuality, marriage, raising kids, and drinking.  We realize that raising kids and drinking may seem a bit redundant.

Film Festival director Joe Edick, out of Michigan said, this is the second year they've put this adult comedy festival on.

"Every film has gotten an audience-favorite vote in order to make it into the festival,"he said by phone. "Obviously, comedy is subjective, but we've pared down tons of submissions to bring you what we consider the funniest."

The first three short films, which have all won awards, seemingly start out the strongest. Slated to run first, Status Update: A Facebook Fairytale, an Australian film at 11 minutes is about a guy named Allan "whose Facebook status updates are all coming freaking true!"

It won a special Jury Prize from the New York Friars ClubComedy Film Festival. The next film, The Dark Companion which runs 14 minutes, is about Howard, a puppet facing an existential crisis when he is the only one who can see the puppateer controlling him. This won "Best Film" at at the Laugh Track Comedy Festival. The third award winner is Dream Job, a 19-minute film about Dave, an out-of-work filmmaker who has been selling his comic book collection to pay his rent. Just as he's about to give up hope, he's offered what he thinks is his dream job...a chance to work for George Lucas. This won the Audience Award at The NYC Picturestart Film Festival.

"Last year we got a lot of G-rated material," Edick said. "This year, the predominant content we got was pretty blue. It is definitely adult humor. For whatever reason, that's how it worked out this year.  I wouldn't recommend anyone under 18 attending, but if you've seen Pineapple Express, The Hangover, and Knocked Up, this is the type of humor to expect."

"You know if you're going to go to a traditional film festival, you're committing to days of watching films on end. This gives someone a taste of the festival experience and compresses it in 90 minutes. You get all the fun and less time commitment. It's interesting because with these films, you'll see a lot of great up-and-coming works by many people who are in the film industry, but haven't gotten the shot at writing and directing major films, so in their spare time, they pull a little money together and they do it on their own.

The Laugh Out Loud Film Festival is among many funny, edgy offerings The Colonial Theatre is bringing to the area this summer, including stand up comedy and more movie favorites.  The film fest will run again on July 28 and August 16. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $8.25 and the Tiki bar will be selling beer and wine. For more information about the Film Festival visit lolsff.com. For more information about The Colonial Theatre visit colonialtheatre.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com