hello! i’m josie, i am a comedian and a filmmaker. i write and direct films that express universal experiences about everyday people with a surrealish genre twist. Whether it’s a woman who hears a fire alarm every time she feels close to her hookup buddy, or a barista with a UTI who finds herself in an action movie, my films are a little like daydreams.
in ALARM (2023), a woman’s romantic feelings for the guy she’s hooking up with are constantly interrupted by a fire alarm. UTI (postproduction; coming 2025) is an absurd action comedy about a woman battling cystitis at her cafe job, while my next film, DAWN (in development) is a dramedy modelled after todd haynes’s SAFE. (A popular youtube yoga instructor’s body starts to disappear, atom by atom – and she’s not the only one…)
there has never been a time when i was not obsessed with film and tv. i wrote my first short script aged 11 about a world between the couch cushions. from high art to pop culture, my influences range from Agnes Varda to The Simpsons and i have always been curious (read: desperate) about how to make people laugh.
in my last year of a modern languages degree at cambridge, i threw myself into filmmaking for the first time. i began as a production designer, running the art department on many projects including Ruling Class (comedy web series, 2015) Bloody Cakes (comedy, 40min, 2016) and In Mud and Rain (drama, 2016). during my finals, i designed the set for a stage production of A Clockwork Orange at the adc theatre, sketching an erotic nude of a cow-woman for the korowa milk bar while cramming stendhal. relatable!
i left london for berlin in 2018 and threw myself into its English-speaking comedy circuit. i started a beloved open mic night called SAUCE for global majority comedians, staged a post-apocalyptic live late show, and my one-person show Josie Parkinson Is Not A Sex Robot Anymore debuted at the comedy cafe berlin in 2022. in it, i played an escaped sex robot who finds her voice through stand-up comedy, taking an absurdist angle on artificial intelligence and misogyny and celebrating the sex appeal of the pfandautomat.
i studied directing at berlin’s self-organised film school, filmArche e.V., where i now sit on the board of directors. while finishing post-production on UTI and developing DAWN, i am co-writing a feature script, romantic comedy OUTSTANDING (working title) about a chaotic theatre production designer who has to choose between her rich handsome boyfriend and her stable accountant.
Please do get in touch if you are interested in my work! I am no longer on Twitter at @josieparkinson and instead on Instagram at @thisisjosieparkinson.
hello! I'm josie parkinson. 