Paris Is Burning | 1990 | documentary |

Paris Is Burning is a 1990 American documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it. Critics consider the film to be an invaluable documentary of the end of the "Golden Age" of New York City drag balls, and a thoughtful exploration of race, class, gender, and sexuality in America. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The title takes its name from the Paris Is Burning ball held annually by artist Paris Dupree who appears in the film. The film explores the elaborately-structured ball competitions in which contestants, adhering to a very specific "category" or theme, must "walk", much like a fashion model parades a runway. Contestants are judged on criteria including their dance talent, the beauty of their clothing, and the "realness" of their drag - i.e., their ability to pass as a member of the group or sex they are portraying. For example, the category "banjee realness" comprises gay men portraying macho archetypes such as sailors, soldiers, and street hoodlums. "Banjee boys" are judged by their ability to pass as their straight counterparts in the outside world. Most of the film alternates between footage of balls and interviews with prominent members of the scene, including Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, Angie Xtravaganza, and Willi Ninja. Many of the contestants vying for trophies are representatives of "houses" that serve as intentional families, social groups, and performance teams. Houses and ball contestants who consistently win trophies for their walks eventually earn "legendary" status. The film also documents the origins of "voguing", a dance style in which competing ball-walkers pose and freeze in glamorous positions as if being photographed for the cover of Vogue. Upon its release, the documentary received exceptionally good reviews from critics and won several awards including a Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, a Berlin International Film Festival Teddy Bear, an audience award from the Toronto International Film Festival, a GLAAD Media Award, a Women in Film Crystal Award, a Best Documentary award from the Los Angeles, New York, and National Film Critics' Circles, and it also was named as one of 1991's best films by the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, Time magazine, and others. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from a number of mainstream and independent presses, remarkable at that time for a film on LGBT topics. It currently holds a score of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 7.83/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Paris Is Burning dives into '80s transgender subculture, with the understated camera allowing this world to flourish and the people to speak (and dance) for themselves." Directed by Jennie Livingston Produced by Jennie Livingston Starring Dorian Corey Pepper LaBeija Venus Xtravaganza Octavia St. Laurent Willi Ninja Angie Xtravaganza Sol Pendavis Williams