According to a 2015 study by Dr. Stacy Smith at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, 32% of short films are directed by women. And according to the National Sporting Good Association, 35% of billiards players are women. ChatGPT has reminded me that statistics don’t quite work this way — and that my grasp of conditional probability is dreadful — but I’m going to go ahead and argue that, given those numbers, at least a decent percentage of billiards short films ought to be directed by women. And yet, the fact remains: there is a real paucity in this area.
Of the 183 billiards short films I’ve identified, approximately 10% are directed by women. This includes a few — e.g., Nine-Ball; New York Billiards; Biljar; O’Reilly’s Luck — that I’ve reviewed before in past posts. Well, here’s my attempt to bring a few more to your attention.
Drop Pocket
It took me nine years to track down and finally reconnect with Margaux Hemard, the director of this 2017 Australian short film. But, it was worth it. Created while she attended the Sydney Film School, Drop Pocket is a poignant movie focused on an estranged middle-aged father, who attempts to reconnect with the son he abandoned 20 years ago, over a high stakes pool game. The son is not aware of the stranger’s identity, which creates a very asymmetrical dialogue, as the son shares some resentment about his father, and the father assesses whether to disclose his true intent. In this sense, it reminded me of Penance, another female-directed billiards short film that deals with two characters who may have a close connection.
While billiards is clearly secondary to Ms. Hemard’s exploration of the “possibility of reconciliation after irreparable psychological damage caused by the abandonment of a parent,” the film proves she’s no stranger to capturing the energy of the sport. The use of rapid shots, different angles, blurred backgrounds, and a long tracking shot, not to mention the inclusion of “Hum Along and Dance” by Rare Earth, all bring the billiards to life.
Beyond Billiards (original title: Más Allá del Billar)
Director Florencia DuFou kindly sent me a link to Beyond Billiards, a 2025 student production she created as part of the Acting degree program at the National University of the Arts in Argentina. But, not surprisingly, it was in Spanish, so I needed to use transcription and translation software from Sonix.ai to generate a film I could comfortably review.
The self-funded film focuses on Dolores (played by Ms. DuFou) who is playing billiards with a movie director. Some emotions from the past resurface, and he tries to make a move on Dolores, but is rejected. Her night takes a much stranger turn when Death later shows up at the door, ready to take Dolores. She’s able to stall, and then rebuff him by inviting him to play pool and then getting him to gamble on the likelihood of her making a difficult shot.
This is no Twilight Zone – “A Game of Pool” but it’s commendable what was created with the limited resources they had. And, I’m glad I was introduced to the song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by the punk band Bauhaus. It was a fitting choice for the film.
The Shaughnessy Standard
Samantha Hussey’s 2024 film has an interesting set-up that falls apart in its execution. Two estranged siblings are reconnected by the death of their father, who decided before he died that the only fair way to split his estate was to have the siblings compete for it in a winner-takes-all single game of pool. It’s a bit of a cruel joke since the father acknowledges in the pre-recorded video that pool is the “one game you’ve never been able to play.” After watching the video, the siblings relocate to the billiards room where they attempt to play. But, the playing is soon eclipsed by a recounting of their fractured relationship and then an urge to settle things – specifically, his ashes – in a very different way. A little more billiards playing would have been appreciated, though admittedly, it’s not that entertaining watching people miss shots.
Scratch
Girl power gets its moment on the baize in Alice Blasingame’s 2024 short film Scratch. A trio of besties bond in billiards as they tell bad jokes, trade anecdotes about substituting in the science classroom, improvise songs about Bill Nye the Science Guy, and find camaraderie in rebuffing predatory bar patron Brad and sticking him with the bar bill. They even recruit a local barfly to be the “Brad buffer.” Two women also bond over using Brad to make an ex-boyfriend jealous. Light on substance and lighter on enjoyable billiards, the film has a female empowerment message, but without a novel twist, it views more like a table scratch.
El Billar
Irene Blei refers to her 1990 short film El Billar as a “graduation project according to current standards.” As Ms. Blei shared with me, “I’d always been interested in animated film, but back then in Argentina there was no formal training in this field—however, I was able to work as a teacher, sharing some of what I’d learned on my own about animation. I applied for a scholarship and was lucky enough to win it.”
The film is pretty straight-forward. A toad and another animal are playing pool. Another toad approaches, but he is rejected because he is a foreigner. Packed within those few minutes is Ms. Blei’s exploration of lip-syncing (in animation), as well as a project to revive traditional Argentinian tales, using the toad as the protagonist. She brings to life phrases about toads, such as “to act like a toad,” “to be a toad from another pond,” and “to grow up like a toad.” Having that context and then rewatching the film gave it a whole new level of meaning.
Today Ms. Blei has directed more than 20 animation shorts, won over 30 awards, been featured in the The Many Wonderful Lives of Argentine Animation at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image, and most amazingly, is the founder of Taller de Cine El Mate, which was the first film school for children and youth in Argentina.
While I don’t wish to make any generalizations about the types of movies women make, I do find it interesting that across this quintet of five films (which were randomly selected, so long as they were billiards short films directed by women that I had not yet reviewed), there are no sketchy hustlers, no brawls, no dingy pool halls. The themes vary considerably, though friendship, reconnection, and working through challenging pasts are all prevalent. Personally, I’d like to see a little more exploration in these areas across the genre, regardless of who directs them.
