Kimberly Reed’s documentary, I’m Your Venus, exploring the cold case murder of Venus Xtravaganza, screened at this year’s BFI Flare and is awaiting a UK-wide release date.
I’m Your Venus is somewhat unusual as far as film documentaries go. It is, for all intents and purposes, a sequel. In 1990, Paris is Burning, directed by Jennie Livingston, offered the uninitiated masses a window into the world of NYC’s ballroom culture. One of the members of the House of Xtravaganza profiled in the film was Venus Pellagatti Xtravaganza, a young Puerto Rican Italian American trans woman who radiated with the joy and self-confidence she had found walking the balls as part of her chosen family, the House of Xtravaganza. Before Livingston completed the documentary, Venus was murdered, almost certainly in an act of transphobic violence, a few days before Christmas 1988. She was only 23 years old.
I’m Your Venus sees director Kimberly Reed picking up Venus’ story more than 30 years after her death. Her brothers – John, Joe and Louie Pellagatti – reach out to the House of Xtravaganza to learn more about Venus’ life with them and to include them in their attempt to have the investigation into her murder reopened. This process doesn’t provide the concrete answers they might have hoped for, but we see how both of Venus’ families find solace and catharsis in their quest to give Venus the dignity that she was deprived of in death. They successfully petition for a court order to posthumously correct her legal name and for her childhood home, 343½ 8th Street in Jersey City, to be recognised as a historical landmark. All this takes place against a backdrop of forces that continue to threaten the very existence of the predominantly Black and Latinx queer community that makes ballroom culture possible. We see a rally held in memory of O’Shae Sibley, who was stabbed outside a petrol station in Brooklyn where he and some friends were hanging out and voguing to Beyoncé.
I’m Your Venus is a striking portrait of grief. We see the conflicting emotions that Venus’ brothers have lived with ever since her death, from anger at Venus herself to regret in how their own behaviour may have made her feel as though they didn’t love her as much as they did. Her loss echoes down the generations. Her niece, Jillian Pellagatti, wishes that she could have had the chance to know her while she was alive. And in the House of Xtravaganza, she remains a treasured ancestor and an enduring source of inspiration. In queer history, we tend to think of biological families and chosen families as diametrically opposed forces, with the latter offering a balm for the wounds all too often inflicted by the former. But in I’m Your Venus, we see how the coming together of Venus’ two families offers a chance for them both to heal together and to direct their combined energies towards fighting for lasting change.
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