Christie Pits Film Festival
Rescheduled to: saturday, august 27, 2022

sunset boulevard

With the short films Camera Test and The Women’s Hour

Was there ever a more compelling portrait of the ravages of Hollywood than Gloria Swanson as forgotten silent film star Norma Desmond? Director Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard is a pitch-black showbiz satire in the guise of a stylish film noir about a hapless screenwriter who gets drawn into Norma’s increasingly unhinged fantasy of fame and insatiable hunger for a comeback performance. 

In a contemporary take on similar themes, Scarborough filmmaker Joyce Wong’s short film Camera Test combines testimonial and performance to highlight women’s ongoing struggles against sexism in the film industry. The Women’s Hour is multidisciplinary Toronto performers Briana Templeton and Gwynne Phillips’ homage to behind-the-scenes melodramas like Sunset Boulevard, The Bad and the Beautiful, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Shifting between on-screen and off-screen worlds, the film tells a sordid, decades-long tale of rival actresses driven by fame to the point of murder. Originally created with funding from TOPS in commemoration of Christie Pits Film Festival’s 10th anniversary in 2020, it premiered to a 100-person audience at our small Fort York festival that year, and will finally perform for adoring fans at CPFF. They’re (all) ready for their close up, Mr. DeMille!