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56-510: The Mead Festival has a distinguished history of “firsts,” including being the first venue to screen the now-classic documentary Paris Is Burning (1990) about the urban transgender community. Furthermore the Mead Festival has introduced New York audiences to such acclaimed films as the Oscar-winning documentary The Blood of Yingzhou District (2006), Oscar-winning animated short The Moon and

112-478: A ball, as gunshots are heard outside. She mentions to Livingston that this is a common occurrence. This is also one of the few times Livingston and their crew can be seen on screen. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from a number of mainstream and independent presses, remarkable at that time for a film on the LGBT community, given the enormous legal and cultural obstacles that they faced then. The film holds

168-526: A book detailing its production, reception, and influence, Paris Is Burning, A Queer Film Classic (Arsenal Pulp Press). In 2007, writer Wesley Morris, in a print-only section for children for The New York Times , wrote "12 Films to See Before You Turn 13". The piece recommended kids see films like Princess Mononoke , The Wiz , and Do the Right Thing . About Paris Is Burning , Morris says "seeing [Livingston's] documentary as soon as possible means you can spend

224-399: A commonly cited and frequently used organizing tool for LGBT youth; a way for scholars and students to examine issues of race, class, and gender; a way for younger ball participants to meet their cultural ancestors; and a portrait of several remarkable Americans, almost all of whom have died since the film's production. In 2013, UC Irvine scholar Lucas Hilderbrand wrote a history of the film,

280-468: A conversation with Sol Pendavis, Freddie Pendavis, and filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris . In another interview, Jenni Olson , LGBTQ+ film historian, shares her views and opinions on Paris Is Burning . The re-release also includes a 2005 audio commentary from Livingston, Freddie Pendavis, Willi Ninja, and film editor Jonathan Oppenheim. An episode of The Joan Rivers Show from 1991 with Livingston, Dorian Corey, Pepper Labeija, Freddie Pendavis, and Willi Ninja,

336-564: A lot of prejudices against them and who have learned to survive with wit, dignity and energy. Livingston studied photography and painting at Yale University . After moving to New York, she worked for the Staten Island Advance , a local newspaper. She left for one summer to study film at New York University in Greenwich Village . She was photographing in that neighborhood's Washington Square Park , where she met two young men and

392-458: A score of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, " Paris Is Burning dives into the '80s transgender subculture, with the understated camera allowing this world to flourish and the people to speak (and dance) for themselves." On Metacritic the film has a score of 82% out of 21 critic reviews, indicating “universal acclaim.” Terrence Rafferty of The New Yorker said

448-442: A share of the film's profits in 1991. When their attorney saw they had all signed standard model releases generated by WNYC Television, they did not sue and accepted payment. Paris Dupree had planned to sue for $ 40 million. Responding to the financial dispute, Livingston has expressed that documentaries are works of nonfiction and journalism, and that it has never been standard practice to pay their subjects. She states that she paid

504-564: A style of documentary filmmaking called cinéma vérité , an approach in which the filmmaker remains off camera and observes the events unfolding onscreen. The goal of cinéma vérité filmmaking is to capture situations and events that occur naturally, without any input or direction from the filmmaker. Some scholars have argued that the use of cinéma vérité in Paris Is Burning makes the film appear ethnographic in nature. Ethnographic films are typically made by western filmmakers aiming to document

560-689: A tool to break down the stereotypes and create empowerment projects to help individuals or an entire community. Paris Is Burning exploited the ball community and a lot of other people, and the community were upset with Paris Is Burning ." The film received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts during the period when the organization was under fire for funding controversial artists including Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano . Aware that publicity surrounding her project could result in revoked funding, Livingston avoided releasing many details about

616-454: A way to express one's identity, desires and aspirations. The African-American and Latino community depicted in the film includes a diverse range of sexual identities and gender presentations, from "butch queens" (gay cisgender men) to transgender women, to drag queens, to butch women. 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

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672-497: A year for the NFPB and Librarian to consider, with an August submission deadline. The NFR includes films ranging from Hollywood classics to orphan films . A film is not required to be feature-length , nor is it required to have been theatrically released in the traditional sense. The Registry contains newsreels , silent films , student films, experimental films , short films , music videos , films out of copyright protection or in

728-425: Is also included Michelle Parkerson 's essay "Paris Is Burning: The Fire This Time" and Essex Hemphill 's review of the film are also included in the re-release. The re-release also includes over an hour of new outtakes. In one scene, Venus Xtravaganza is shown at her grandmother's house, detailing her goals and hopes for the future, as well as her devotion to her grandmother. Dorian Corey is shown getting ready for

784-460: Is misogynistic, stating in her book, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" : The problem with the analysis of drag as only misogyny is, of course, that it figures male-to-female transsexuality, cross-dressing, and drag as male homosexual activities — which they are not always — and it further diagnoses male homosexuality as rooted in misogyny. Both hooks and Harper criticize

840-603: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was homophobic and transphobic. National Film Registry The National Film Registry ( NFR ) is the United States National Film Preservation Board 's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation , each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB's inception in 1988. Throughout the 1980s, several prominent filmmakers and industry personalities in

896-716: The National Endowment for the Arts , the New York State Council on the Arts , the Paul Robeson Fund, and the Jerome Foundation . Finally, Madison Davis Lacy, the head of public TV station WNYC, saw the material and contributed $ 125,000 to the production. The producers still needed to raise additional funds to edit the film, which came primarily from executive producer Nigel Finch at the BBC-2 show Arena . There

952-693: The National Film Preservation Act of 1988, which established the National Film Registry, its purpose, and the criteria for selecting films for preservation. The Act was passed and the NFR's mission was subsequently reauthorized by further acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, 2008, and 2016. The National Film Preservation Board's mission, to which the NFR contributes, is to ensure the survival, conservation, and increased public availability of America's film heritage. The 1996 law also created

1008-808: 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. In spite of the many positive reactions and film awards earned, Paris Is Burning did not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature that year. This generated accusations that

1064-411: The drag queens ' desire to perform and present "realness". Realness can be described as the ability to appropriate an authentic gender expression . When performing under certain categories at the ball , such as school girl or executive, the queens are rewarded for appearing as close to the "real thing" as possible . A main goal amongst the contestants is to perform conventional gender roles while at

1120-527: The public domain , film serials , home movies , documentaries, animation and independent films . As of the 2023 listing, there are 875 films in the Registry. As of the 2023 induction there are 875 total films. For purposes of this list, multi-year serials are counted only once (as they are in the Registry) by year of completion. The oldest film in the registry, Newark Athlete , was released in 1891, while

1176-453: The Festival continues to exemplify Mead's teachings: that film is a tool for cross-cultural understanding and that it is possible, and important, for societies to learn from each other. Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award recognizes documentary filmmakers who embody the spirit, energy, and innovation demonstrated by anthropologist Margaret Mead in her research, fieldwork, films, and writings. Each year

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1232-660: The Festival that takes place in November. Each year titles are selected from the annual Mead Festival to participate in this year-long program which brings innovative non-fiction work to communities throughout the United States and abroad. The Mead Award jury is led by the Academy Award -nominated director of Black Swan and The Wrestler , Darren Aronofsky , Karen Cooper, director of New York City's Film Forum ; Liz Garbus , Academy Award -nominated director of Bobby Fischer Against

1288-479: The Paris Is Burning ball held annually by artist Paris Dupree who appears in the film. Filming through the mid-to-late 1980s, this documentary 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 . The balls are viewed as sites for performance, fame, and exclusive celebrity status in

1344-641: The Son: An Imagined Conversation (2005), The Future of Food (2004), Power Trip (2003), and Spellbound (2002). The festival owes its origins (and its name) to renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead , who worked for 52 years at the American Museum of Natural History . She acted as curator in the museum's Department of Anthropology, where she helped create the Hall of Pacific Peoples, which bears her name. In her lifetime, Margaret Mead greatly advanced

1400-491: The United States, such as Frank Capra and Martin Scorsese , advocated for Congress to enact a film preservation bill in order to avoid commercial modifications (such as pan and scan and editing for TV) of classic films, which they saw as negative. In response to the controversy over the colorization of originally black and white films in the decade specifically, Representatives Robert J. Mrazek and Sidney R. Yates introduced

1456-618: The World , The Farm and 2002 MacArthur Fellow Stanley Nelson , director of the Emmy -winning documentary The Murder of Emmett Till. Paris Is Burning (film) 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

1512-456: The academic standing and popular appeal of cultural anthropology, and was also one of the earliest anthropologists to integrate visual methods into her research, focus on the study of visual communication, and teach courses on culture and communication. "Pictures are held together," Dr. Mead wrote, "by a way of looking that has grown out of anthropology, a science in which all peoples, however contrasted in physique and culture, are seen as members of

1568-508: The award is given to a filmmaker whose feature documentary offers a new perspective on a culture or community remote from the majority of our audiences' experience as well as displays artistic excellence and originality in storytelling technique. U.S., North American, or World Premiere documentaries (60 minutes or longer) are eligible for the Award. This award has a cash prize. The Margaret Mead Traveling Film & Video Festival presents highlights of

1624-622: The best, most powerful, and a maternal figure of their "children." Houses and ball contestants who consistently win trophies for their walks eventually earn "legendary" status. Jennie Livingston , who moved to New York after graduating from Yale to work in film, spent six years making Paris Is Burning , and interviewed key figures in the ball world. Many of them contribute monologues that shed light on gender roles, gay and ball subcultures, and their own life stories. The film explains how words such as house , mother , shade , reading and legendary gain new meaning when used in novel ways to describe

1680-400: The cover of Vogue . However, Livingston maintained in 1991 that the film was not just about dance: This is a film that is important for anyone to see, whether they're gay or not. It's about how we're all influenced by the media; how we strive to meet the demands of the media by trying to look like Vogue models or by owning a big car. And it's about survival. It's about people who have

1736-442: The documentary is a multi-leveled exploration of an African-American and Latino subculture that serves as a microcosm of fame, race, and wealth in the larger US culture. Through candid one-on-one interviews, the film offers insight into the lives and struggles of its subjects and the strength, pride, and humor they display to survive in a "rich, white world." Drag is presented as a complex performance of gender, class, and race, and

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1792-523: The end of the film, Angie Xtravaganza, Venus's "house mother", reacts to news that Venus is found strangled to death and speculates that a disgruntled client killed her. Others shoplift clothing so they can "walk" in the balls. Several are disowned by transphobic and homophobic parents, leaving them vulnerable to homelessness . Some subjects save money for sex reassignment surgery ; while a few have extensive surgery, others receive breast implants without undergoing vaginoplasty . According to Livingston,

1848-475: The film "a politically astute, historically important document of our precarious times.” Essex Hemphill , the poet known for his role in Marlon Riggs 's film Tongues Untied , reviewed the film for The Guardian , celebrating how the documentary created a forum for the people in it to speak in their own voices, and writing: “Houses of silk and gabardine are built. Houses of dream and fantasy. Houses that bear

1904-583: 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

1960-486: The film was "a beautiful piece of work—lively, intelligent, exploratory …. Everything about Paris Is Burning signifies so blatantly and so promiscuously that our formulations – our neatly paired theses and antitheses – multiply faster than we can keep track of them. What's wonderful about the picture is that Livingston is smart enough not to reduce her subjects to the sum of their possible meanings..." Filmmaker Michelle Parkerson , writing for The Black Film Review , called

2016-407: The filmmaker, Jennie Livingston, who is Jewish, gender-nonconforming, and queer, for remaining visibly absent from the film. Although the viewers are able to hear Livingston a few times during the production, the director's physical absence while orchestrating the viewer's perspective, creates what hooks calls an " Imperial Oversee(r) ". Livingston's visible absence from the film can be attributed to

2072-401: The final cut down to 78 minutes from over 75 hours of footage, all shot on expensive 16mm film . After the film's completion, the producers still needed to raise funds to get permission to use the music played in the ballrooms. It cost almost as much to clear the music as it did to shoot and edit the entire film. The production team had to rely on 10 separate funding sources over the course of

2128-493: The first selection in 1989, the public nominated almost 1,000 films for consideration. Members of the NFPB then developed individual ballots of possible films for inclusion. The ballots were tabulated into a list of 25 films that was then modified by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and his staff at the Library for the final selection. Since 1997, members of the public have been able to nominate up to 50 films

2184-418: The gay and drag subculture. The "houses" serve as surrogate families for young ball-walkers who face rejection from their biological families for their gender expression, identities, and sexual orientation. The film also explores how its subjects deal with issues such as AIDS , racism , poverty , violence and homophobia . Some, such as Venus Xtravaganza , become sex workers to support themselves. Near

2240-508: The group she films (i.e., her queer identity) to “claim [...] a shared sense of marginalization” with them while simultaneously maintaining “phallic power” over them because she as the filmmaker decides how they will be portrayed. In the years following the film's release, people have continued to speak and write about Paris Is Burning . In 2003, the New York Times reported that more than a decade after its release, Paris Is Burning remains

2296-415: The lives and practices of people belonging to non-western cultures. Ethnographic documentaries are often seen as problematic because they allow western filmmakers to put forth their representation of a group which they do not belong to, thereby manipulating audience perceptions of that group. In a similar way, Judith Butler argues that, by remaining off-camera, Livingston uses a shared sense of identity with

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2352-464: The most recent, 12 Years a Slave and 20 Feet from Stardom , were each released in 2013. Released in 1898, and selected in December 2022, Mardi Gras Carnival experienced the longest wait, at 124 years (considering the fact that the film was already almost a century old before the Registry was even established, the "wait" was technically only 33 years), while Raging Bull , released theatrically in

2408-479: The names of their legendary founders…Houses rise and fall. Legends come and go. To pose is to reach for power while simultaneously holding real powerlessness at bay." Yet the film was not without detractors even after its initial release. Writing for Z Magazine , feminist writer bell hooks criticized the film for depicting the ritual of the balls as a spectacle to "pleasure" white spectators. Other authors such as Judith Butler and Phillip Harper have focused on

2464-467: The nature of subcultures. She conducted audio interviews with several ball participants: Venus and Danni Xtravaganza , Dorian Corey , Junior Labeija, Octavia St. Laurent and others. The main self-funded shoot was the Paris is Burning ball in 1986. From that footage, Livingston worked with editor Jonathan Oppenheim to edit a trailer, which was then used to obtain funding from some grants, including awards from

2520-519: The non-profit National Film Preservation Foundation which, although affiliated with the NFPB, raises money from the private sector . "Taken together, the ... films in the National Film Registry represent a stunning range of American filmmaking—including Hollywood features, documentaries, avant-garde and amateur productions, films of regional interest, ethnic, animated, and short film subjects—all deserving recognition, preservation and access by future generations. As we begin this new millennium,

2576-408: 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 are led by "mothers" who are viewed as

2632-550: The principals as a matter of respect at a time when this was not commonly done, and she argues that they received considerably more than they would have received if they had been actors in an independently-made drama feature. 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

2688-503: The project outside of her small circle of producers and collaborators. Although there had been no agreement to do so, the producers planned to distribute approximately $ 55,000 (1/5 of the sale price of the film to Miramax) among 13 of the participants. While Dorian Corey and Willi Ninja were very happy to be paid for a film they'd understood was an unpaid work of nonfiction, several other film participants felt they were not properly compensated and thus retained an attorney, planning to sue for

2744-535: The project. In 2020, the Criterion Collection re-released Paris Is Burning with features including new interviews and conversations with cast members, scholars, etc. The UCLA Film and Television Archive restored the film into a new 2K digital form. This was done in collaboration with the Sundance Institute and Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, under the supervision of Jenny Livingston. Livingston has

2800-476: The registry stands among the finest summations of American cinema's wondrous first century." —Doctor James H. Billington , Librarian of Congress . The NFPB adds to the NFR up to 25 "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films" each year in December, showcasing the range and diversity of American film heritage to increase awareness for its preservation. A film becomes eligible for inclusion ten years after its original release. For

2856-550: The rest of your life having its sense of humanity amuse, surprise, and devastate you, over and over." Wolfgang Busch 's 2006 documentary How Do I Look is often considered a sequel to Paris Is Burning . It chronicles ball culture in Harlem and Philadelphia over ten years. It also features several members of the Paris Is Burning cast, including Pepper LaBeija, Willi Ninja, Octavia St. Laurent, Jose Xtravaganza, and Carmen Xtravaganza. Busch said in an interview, "I use How Do I Look as

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2912-476: The same species, engaged in solving problems common to humanity." In 1976, in commemoration of her 75th birthday, the museum decided to pay tribute to her work with a film festival of top ethnographic and other documentary films. In its early years, the festival focused on ethnographic films and was hosted by the USC Center for Visual Anthropology (directed by Mead's student, the late filmmaker Tim Asch ). Today,

2968-448: The same time trying to challenge them. hooks also questions the political efficacy of the drag balls themselves, citing her own experiments with drag, and suggesting that the balls themselves lack political, artistic, and social significance. hooks criticizes the production and questions gay men performing drag, suggesting that it is inherently misogynistic and degrading towards women. Butler responds to hooks' previous opinion that drag

3024-584: The subculture of queer Black and Latino folks, who are rarely afforded the opportunity to exist in mainstream culture. Contestants are judged on criteria including their dance talent, the aesthetic beauty of their clothing, and the "realness" of their drag - i.e., their ability to pass as a member of the stereotype, gender, 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

3080-626: Was intrigued by their dancing and the unusual slang they were using. She asked what they were doing, and they told her that they were voguing . She attended her first ball, a mini-ball at the Gay Community Center on 13th Street, which she filmed as an assignment for her class at NYU. At that mini-ball, Livingston encountered Venus Xtravaganza for the first time. Later, she spent time with Willi Ninja to learn about ball culture and voguing. She also researched African-American history, literature, and culture, and she also studied queer culture and

3136-495: Was some follow-up production in 1989: to tell the story of voguing's entry into mainstream culture, and to tell the stories of Willi's international success as a dancer and of Venus Xtravaganza's murder, which remains unsolved to this day. The filmmakers also did an additional interview with Dorian Corey, talking about "executive realness", "shade", and "reading". The documentary took seven years to complete due to production costs and difficulties in obtaining funding. Livingston edited

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