DOORS OPEN @ 7:00...SCREENING STARTS @ 7:30.. DOORS CLOSE @ 8:00

ALL FREE (100) tickets are first come first serve at the door!

'In 1990, documentarian Jennie Livingston released Paris Is Burning, a poignant film about the patrons of the then-still-burgeoning vogue ball scene. A safe space for disenfranchised, often poor, gay and transgendered Blacks and Latinos in a time when it could be deadly just to walk down the street as such, the vogue ball of the late '80s and '90s was a site of transformative glamour, beauty, and empowerment — a tradition that continues to this day. Featuring gorgeous voguing and runway legends like Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Avis Pendavis, and Venus Xtravaganza, Livingston's documentary immortalized a very specific moment in both gay and trans culture and in New York City, before both were changed forever by the dual clouds of AIDS and gentrification.' - NPR

However from the time of its debut, Paris Is Burning has inspired debates about exploitation, appropriation, and who gets to tell what stories. That these debates rage on 25 years later is a sign of this movie’s vitality.
 

Presented by Hannah Lowen and Julia Keister