This is Ballroom

Synopsis

In New York in the 1960s, there was a feud in the drag community as only white drag queens were winning beauty pageants. In the following years, non-white drags created their own competitions, and this was the birth of ballroom.

In Rio de Janeiro and its outskirts, LGBTQ+ / BIPOC youth recreates the ballroom culture on their own terms. Ballroom is a fashion show, a beauty pageant, a dance performance and a war. An infernal chaos of music, rhymes, shouts and audience comments. But most of all, it is a sanctuary where primarily queer and non-white people can get a break from a society that doesn’t have many spaces for them. But this is also a no bullshit culture. If you don’t have your moves together, you’ll get chopped by the judges and you’re out.

Meet the key performers of Rio de Janeiro’s thriving ballroom scene in an upbeat, sweaty and delightfully unruly film from a parallel universe of moves and resistance.

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Presenting partner
BABA BAR