A song-and-dance star is ready for her big TV break … but there’s a demonic presence waiting in the wings.

Singer, dancer and all-round diva Sissy St Claire is hosting her very own TV variety special, filmed in front of a live studio audience. But as she hoofs and belts her way around a deliriously spangled set, pausing only for awkward skits and lavishly corny monologues to-camera, a menacing masked figure is watching her. Is it a demon? A stalker? Is Sissy self-sabotaging, or is she losing her mind? As she begins to panic, the show starts to turn on her.

Premiering at Rotterdam as part of a showcase of director Amanda Kramer’s work, Give Me Pity! is a meticulously realised parody of 1970s and 1980s musical variety television. Kramer – whose film Please Baby Please is also screening at MIFF 70 – has femininity and celebrity in her satirical sights, with a high-camp aesthetic that’s at once sinister, seductive and surreal. As Sissy, Bette Midler’s daughter Sophie von Haselberg absolutely commits to a roller-coaster trip of musical numbers and monologues that increasingly feels like an endurance test or ritual of humiliation. Never before has television looked so dangerous.

“A thing of beauty and wonder … Give Me Pity! is yet another spectacular accomplishment to add to Kramer’s already formidable filmography.” – Alliance of Women Film Journalists