MQFF’s Pride Program opens with a special event to celebrate the legacy of Venus Xtravaganza, the global icon who rose to fame in the 1991 documentary Paris is Burning. Venus was tragically murdered before the Paris is Burning was released, and now, decades later, I’m Your Venus picks up a trail gone cold as her two families—biological and ballroom—come together to honour her legacy. This moving documentary comes at time in USA history where transgender rights are digressing, invoking the decades old USA protest cry “Voguing is not a crime! Murder is”. Here Venus’s legacy reminds us that Voguing is an act of resistance as well as an artform. 

IN-CONVERSATION
Decolonising Black & Brown Sites of Resistance – looking back to move forward. 

To celebrate Venus Xtravaganza’s legacy in connection with the new documentary I’m Your Venus, MQFF is thrilled to announce a very special in-conversation.

Elyssia Wilson-Heti (FAFSWAG) in-conversation with Mikha Diesel (the House of DIESEL), and Angel Furia (mother of the House of Furia).

How do we as a community continue to build on our resistance movements – sit in the present, move into the future and remember the past? Venus is an ancestor; how do we continue to honour her and dismantle the institutional frameworks of harm she navigated? How do we as recipients of cultural spaces birthed by Black and Brown, trans and queer bodies, how do we ensure that we don’t perpetuate harm? There is deep entanglement of all the issues the community faces and these often collide in real time – this is reflected in the documentary I’m Your Venus.

As one of the pioneering producers from the ballroom community in Tāmaki Makaurau Aotearoa and now retired aunty Elyssia Wilson-Heti will facilitate a conversation about how we continue to decolonise these spaces with members of the ballroom community here in Naarm.

Gather to pay tribute to Venus with this in-conversation with community.

 “I want a car. I want to be with the man I love . . . I want a nice home away from New York I want to get married in church in white . . . I want to be a professional model behind cameras. I want this. This is what I want and I’m going to go for it.” — Venus Xtravaganza, from Paris Is Burning  

Viewer Advice: contains discussions of transphobic violence, homophobic violence and family violence. 

Victorian Premiere 

I’M YOUR VENUS (2024) 

Director: Kimberly Reed 

Country: USA 

Language: English 

Community : Queer, Transgender