Credits
Official selection
International Film Festival Rotterdam 2022
Director
Amanda Kramer
Writer
Amanda Kramer
Cast
Cricket Arrison, Reshma Gajjar, Tess Hewlett, Annie Kyle, Diesel M., Malachi Middleton, Sophie Von Haselberg
contact
Alief
USA
2022 80 mins
OV English
“A singular vision for audiences with a taste for lurid cinematic mischief-making.”- Wendy Ide, SCREEN DAILY
Sissy St. Claire has one dream: Making It! And she has finally arrived… on stage, that is, for an evening full of laughter, introspection, gossip, glamour, song and dance… with the occasional flight of vanity, anger and disillusionment piercing through an increasingly uncertain act. Standing before us, “the living proof that television is in a golden age”, she addresses the audience with confidence and glee. Yet something is slightly off. Uneasy. Honest. As she tries to reconcile the multiple characters she must perform on stage, the veneer cracks. Worse, a hooded man is seen lurking in the wings, threatening to shut it all down—her dream, and all there is.
Drawing from her background in dance and theatre arts, rising indie filmmaker Amanda Kramer (PLEASE BABY PLEASE, also at this year’s festival) invites us to a Primetime Saturday Night Network Television Spectacular! A delightful, horror-tinged cringe-comedy that would be perfectly at home on late-night Adult Swim, GIVE ME PITY! is a satirical send-up of American television—complete with musical numbers, commercial breaks, thematic segments and a melting, analogue video aesthetic mined for all its psychedelic potential. Embodied by Sophie Von Haselberg’s spectacular performance in the lead role, Kramer’s daring monologue confirms a rare talent for words. Here is an extravagant “hour of television” composed with exquisite wit and intelligence, doubling as a thorough takedown of noxious, showbiz expectations—performance of gender, of beauty, of success—that cast a long shadow on women’s limelight. – Ariel Esteban Cayer
Showings
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