About | Joy Gohring

about me

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own voice. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

Direct/Writer/Producer:

Joy Gohring is an internationally touring stand-up comic turned Independent Film Maker. She is currently producing “Dog House” a feature film for Vuguru, Michael Eisner’s (Disney) mutli-platform studio. Most recently she produced and directed “The Elisabeth Show,” an online TV series for Europe’s most viewed online website, Allocine.com and James Franco’s “Undergrads: South,” a docu-series about young Film Makers in Austin, Texas.

Joy has several projects in development, including the animated TV series “Gladys” based on a sassy 88-year-old woman from Austin who calls into the “Ellen DeGegeneres Show.” Joy attracted the interest of several production companies based on her award winning short “18″ (combined with extensive her comedy background) and currently has three feature films in development. Her upcoming directorial slate includes: “WooMen,” a mockumentary about a group of women who attend a weekend workshop to understand men, “The Flaming Jerk,” a comedy about a small town loser and his outspoken grandfather who makes him get a life, and “Sugar Baby,” a teen comedy about sex, divorce and babies.

Joy is a regular speaker at “Women in Comedy” for Digital Hollywood and has spoken at dozens other conferences and festival, including The Dallas Film Festival, Austin Film Festival and SouthBySouth West on “How to Make Quality Online Content on a Budget.” You can watch Joy’s acclaimed sci-fi comedy series “DateAHuman.com” on Babelgum.com. Her short “18″ is currently airing on PBS and her short “Mental” – Winner of “The Best Dramatic Short’ at the 2011 Cannes Indie Film Festival will be released in 2013.

Joy wrote, directed and starred in three international touring comedy reviews, including the acclaimed “Gohring & Stein.” She was a regular at HBO’s Comedy Arts Festival in the early 2000′s and has performed at Montreal’s “Just For Laughs” Festival. Joy was the star of two TV series (2001 & 2005) for Carsey-Werner-Mandabach on the Oxygen Network based on her comedy act. She has developed, written or sold ideas to Lionsgate, FX Network, Funny or Die, Disney Channel, HBO, NBC Universal and Yahoo!

Joy is a University of Texas Alumni (Journalism & Business) and a full scholarship recipient to the America Film Institute’s “Directing Workshop for Women” (2009). She was raised in Austin, TX and has lived in Los Angeles for 11 years. Her father is a retired city planner and her stepmother is a well-known author of books on bi-polar disorder. Her older brother is a Tai Chi and Martial Arts Instructor with a 7th degree black belt in Kung Fu. Her mother died when she was a teenager. Joy often focuses on creating material for female protagonists and has a soft spot for science fiction and dystopian mythology.


Directing: Joy will direct the small town comedy, “The Flaming Jerk,” in the summer of 2013. Her second feature is a mockumentary called “WooMen” slated for Spring 2014. Joy’s short films have been featured at South By Southwest, Newport Beach Film Festival, Dallas Film Festival, Cannes Independent and more.
Producing: Joy’s production house produces web series from 30k to 250k and feature films from 100k to 1.25 million.

Writing: Joy has set up projects at Lionsgate, FX, A Very Good Production, Carsey-Werner-Mandabach and more.
Collaboration: Collaboration is key.