This is Ballroom

Name: This is Ballroom
Director: Juru & Vitã
Released: 2024
Duration: 92

16 SN

Salão de Baile

In Rio de Janeiro City and its outskirts, LGBTQ+ youth of color recreates Ballroom culture on their own terms. A portrait of the dramas, the voguing performances, and the art of shade, 50 years after its inception in New York.

Awards

NewFest: New York’s LGBT Film Festival (2024) – Nominated: Audience Award: Documentary Feature

São Paulo Association of Art Critics Awards (2025) – Nominated: APCA Trophy: Best Documentary

Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival (2024) – Winner: Première Brazil:Best Editing

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Feature

International

African Premiere

Award Winning

Director(s):

Juru & Vitã

Country:

Brazil

Year:

2024

Duration:

92 min

Language(s):

Spanish

RATING:

16 SN

This moving documentary provides a window into the world of Brazilian drag, where the culture of voguing, birthed in the drag communities of New York in the late 1960s, has blossomed into the hugely expressive ballroom culture of contemporary Rio de Janeiro and its suburbs. From its early American roots, when two Black queens left the white-dominated pageant contests of New York City behind to create their own scene, ballroom culture has long been a space of radical queer freedom. Now, five decades later, the ballroom scene is thriving in 21st century Brazil, with ‘houses’ across the country teaching the ‘art of shade’. Directed by queer Brazilian artists Juru and Vitã, This Is Ballroom is centred around a real-life ball in a warehouse in Rio, staged specifically for the film. By providing a judgement-free space for full human expression and transgression, the film shines an empathetic spotlight on its trans-led cast, while also revealing simmering racial and gender tensions. This Is Ballroom celebrates the world it documents as a bountiful and transformative space for queer people of colour.

Film Stills

Trailer

Previous Festivals

NewFest: New York’s LGBT Film Festival (2024)

Rio de Janeiro Int’l FF (2024)