Each year at Newfest, the New York LGBT Film Festival, the lesbian and bi women's shorts programs are some of the most popular. Each program has between five and nine different films, all with a different theme. This year, the women's short film programs were uniformly good, with two or three films in each that stood out.

In the "She's So Outrageous!" program, CremMate: Muffy, is about a lesbian couple who love their cat. No, they really love their cat. In the morning at their kitchen table they sip coffee from matching cat mugs, sitting under the cat clock, in front of their knickknack shelves dripping with kitty statuettes, while wearing a cat t-shirt and then drive to work in their car with a license plate that reads: “I (Heart) Cats.” When an unfortunate driveway accident occurs, Dona and Susan come up with a creative solution to memorializing their beloved pet.

The director, Diane Wilkins, sheepishly admits that all cat paraphernalia used in the film actually belongs to her and her girlfriend (but adds, in their defense, that it's not normally all crammed into the same room.).

In the sex-comedy His Name Is Cosmo, Laurie and Nancy's sex-life is not what it used to be. The couple pays a visit to their friendly neighborhood sex shop,Toys In Babeland (a real store in New York City), where Tristan Taormino has a cute cameo as the knowledgeable sex-toy sales clerk. (Taormino as the sales clerk, asks the couple what color toy they'd like, to which Nancy replies, “Black goes with everything.”)

They make their selection, name it “Cosmo,” and bring it home to play. But after one night of bliss, Nancy says she doesn't want to become “Cosmo-dependant” and insists it be put away. One fateful night, Laurie liberates Cosmo from its drawer while Nancy is working late. When Nancy arrives and spies her naked lover in bed and a condom on the floor, she assumes the worst and she accuses Laurie of cheating. Will the lovers get back together? Will Cosmo be tossed in the river?

The filmmakers, Nicole Opper and Laura Terruso admit that the film “Cosmo was based on our real lives. People ask: ‘Wasn't it hard to make a movie with your partner?' We always say, ‘Not as hard as decorating our apartment!'”

In the spoof, Make Room for Phyllis, a seductive “polyamorous” couple are not what they seem to be. When they lure Phyllis into coming home with them, they don't immediately jump into bed with her. Instead, they convince her that in polyamory, doing household chores is part of the courtship process. But a month later, her most intimate relationship is still with their vacuum cleaner. The audience laughed through the entire 12 minute film, though director Madeleine Olnek admits, “I had never heard of polyamory until last year when I saw documentaries about it at Newfest.”

The "Science of Love" program put a spotlight on women's relationships and the nature of love itself. The mini romantic comedy LA Dolls chronicles the story between mismatched lovers Les and Lori (blonde and brunette, LA schiksa and NY Jew, pink lips and red lips), two glamorous LA lesbians who are dolls...real dolls of the Barbie variety, that is.

They go on dates to everywhere that real girlfriends/filmmakers Les Thomas and Lori Kaye frequented when courting: romantic cafes, a carnival, the beach, sex in the pool, even flying home to meet mom and dad in Florida (hysterically played by Lori's real parents and grilling the shiksa girlfriend with questions like, “What are your intentions?”)

When they are together, life is beautiful and the musical about Eleanor Roosevelt on which they are collaborating (including musical numbers like, “He's My Cousin, He's My Husband!” and “Oh Polio!”) is going swimmingly. But tempers flare when the stress of working together and dating is too much.

Les pays a visit to her therapist (Mo Gaffney, in a comic cameo) and the lovers reconcile until Lori meets with an agent who tries to convince her to release the “dead weight,” of her partner Les and team up with Mark Shaiman instead (who plays himself in a delightfully over-the-top cameo). Will Lori choose career over love and toss Les to the curb on their anniversary?

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