United States 2024, 80 min, English, Hebrew & English subtitles

Venus Xtravaganza rose to global trans icon status after her appearance in the seminal 1991 documentary Paris Is Burning, which brought the world of voguing balls and the drag and trans communities finding refuge within them into the spotlight. Venus, an Italian-Puerto Rican from New Jersey, was murdered before the film’s release. Now, the two worlds she inhabited, her two families, one biological and one chosen—The House of Xtravaganza—join forces to uncover the truth about her death and honor her legacy. The families embark on an emotional journey that begins with acknowledging past hurts, culminating in a public honoring of the larger-than-life queens who channeled their rage and pain into a dance as powerful as it was empowering.

Previous Festivals: Tribeca Film Festival, BFI London

Screening Schedule:
  • Fri 23.05 20:15, Cinematheque 1 Purchase
  • Mon 26.05 14:15, Cinematheque 2 Purchase

Kimberly Reed’s most recent film DARK MONEY was an award-winning selection at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, was promptly named one of Vogue’s “66 Best Documentaries of All Time,” shortlisted for an Oscar, nominated for Best Documentary of the Year by IDA and for four Critics’ Choice Awards, and won the prestigious duPont Columbia Prize for Broadcast Journalism. Her trailblazing film PRODIGAL SONS (Telluride Film Festival premiere, First Run Features, Sundance Channel), won 14 international awards and was the first documentary by a transgender filmmaker to be theatrically released in the US. She recently directed episode 2 of the four-part non/fiction series EQUAL on HBO MAX, titled “Transgender Pioneers,” and served as Executive Producer of the award-winning HBO documentary TRANSHOOD. Ms. Reed also produced/edited/wrote PAUL GOODMAN CHANGED MY LIFE (Zeitgeist Films), and produced THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON (Netflix).

Her work in broader artistic fields has also been acclaimed: her short story was published in the NY Times bestselling “The Moth – 50 True Stories,” and she has co/written the libretti for four operas, including AS ONE, the most frequently produced American opera in the 21st century. Her film projections for opera have been called “worthy of Fellini or Bergman” (SF Classical Voice).

She has been honored as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” Out Magazine’s “Out 100,” and received the Chicken & Egg Award. A frequent juror (Sundance, POV), lecturer (Harvard, Columbia, NYU, USC) and speaker (The Moth), Kim is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. She is a summa cum laude graduate of UC Berkeley (B.A.) and San Francisco State University film school (M.A.).

Production: Steven Cantor, Jamie Schutz, Mike Stafford
Editing: Dava Whisenant, Ace, Eric Daniel Metzgar, Michael Palmieri
Music: T Griffin