Nos últimos meses, venho produzindo meu primeiro documentário de forma totalmente independente, somando forças com artistas incríveis de Sorocaba. (@caodenado&@phfalcadi ) O doc sai em 2020 e tem como objetivo celebrar a arte LGBTQ+ do interior paulista. Em uma cidade onde o atual presidente LGBTfóbico ganhou com 73% dos votos e seu ultimo prefeito eleito declarou que “LGBTs são anormais, pois divergem dos padrões cristãos de normalidade”, existir um espaço de afeto, acolhimento e resistência é indispensável. A próxima edição da TragaBALL (@traga_drag) será no dia 16 e eu estarei lá documentando tudo!

Paris still burns.  A 2015 Guardian article about the film: Burning Down the House

365filmsbyauroranocte:

Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990)

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Here’s one of my favorite segments from the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, which was filmed between the mid- and late 1980s in New York City.

After I saw it for the first time a couple of months ago (I’m not sure what took me so long), I started Googling the people featured in the film, only to find that many of the most memorable characters are dead. For instance, Venus Xtravaganza (“What is wrong with you, Pedro? Are you going through it?”) was found strangled under a bed in a hotel room in 1988.

Dorian Corey’s story is much, much stranger, though better documented. She’s the red-haired old-timer dropping knowledge in this clip. After her death in 1993, a half-mummified body–wrapped in Naugahyde, shot in the head, and believed to have been dead since the late 1960s or early 1970s–was found in a closet in her cluttered Harlem apartment. In 1994, New YorkMagazine published an article about it: “The Drag Queen Had a Mummy in Her Closet.”

I won’t spoil the story (go read the article), but here’s some wisdom from Raul Figueroa, a detective in the New York City medical examiner’s office:

People just wrap a body in whatever’s available. It’s just spontaneous. You wrap it up. Then you put it in a suitcase. Then you put it in the closet. Then you just look at it periodically and wish it would go away.

365filmsbyauroranocte:

Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990)

“I cared deeply, that the film be made, that the stories be told, and that audiences have access to the events, the people, the stories, and ultimately to the sense that creativity and self-expression and authenticity truly matter.”

Don’t miss this exclusive Miramax interview with Paris is Burning filmmaker Jennie Livingston.

Read more here.

People of Pride #18: Angie Xtravaganza

Despite passing at a young age, Angie Xtravaganza was a vital force for young trans people in New York’s ball scene. Her legacy endures through the House of Xtravaganza which remains an active part of New York City’s gay ballroom scene, and you can read more about her here (but I also suggest watching Paris Is Burning if you haven’t):

https://opencity.org/archive/issue-6/the-slap-of-love

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/18/style/paris-has-burned.html

On ‘Pose,’ Janet Mock Tells The Stories She Craved As A Young Trans Person

Janet Mock remembers when she saw the documentary Paris is Burning for the first time. She was in 10th grade, living in Hawaii, and had already socially transitioned her gender identity. She was about to embark on her medical transition.

“My friend had a VHS that she got from another friend,” Mock says. “It was kind of like this little magic ticket that was passed down to a bunch of us.”

Jennie Livingston’s 1990 film focuses on the gay and transgender drag performers in the underground ball culture in New York City. “It was one of the first times that I got to see people who looked like me, and who represented me and my community, be the centerpiece of a narrative,” Mock says. “I felt so seen for one of the very first times in my life.”

That same ball culture she saw in Paris is Burning would come up again in her career, decades later. After launching a career in journalism, writing two memoirs and becoming a trans activist, Mock made history as the first trans woman of color to write and direct an episode of TV when she joined the production of Ryan Murphy’s series Pose.

The FX series, now in its second season, tells the story of LGBTQ youth in the 1980s and '90s ball scene — a community mostly populated by black and Latinx people — and the “houses,” or chosen families, that they create as a mechanism for survival.

“The fact that I get to go on set and supervise production, write scripts, direct … it’s astounding,” Mock says. “I watch the monitors sometimes … with tears in my eyes, realizing that these were the sort of stories that I was craving as a young person. There’s no over-explaining of our experiences. … It’s just: 'Welcome to our world.’”

Photo: Rich Fury/Getty Images

Blood Orange ‘Sutphin Boulevard’

sosreelthoughts:

Movie Quote of the Week: Paris is Burning (1990)

“When someone has rejection from their mother and father, their family, they - when they get out in the world - they search. They search for someone to fill that void.”