KIKI Documentary Showcases LGBTQ Culture, Voguing & Safe Spaces within NYC

KIKI is a documentary glimpse into the NYC Kiki Scene, a ‘society within a society’ created and governed by LGBTQ youth. Co-writer and director Sara Jordenö and co-writer and star Twiggy Pucci Garçon join us to discuss the Kiki Scene, PARIS IS BURNING and the history of Ball culture. Jordenö and Garçon also address the issues and growing political movement within the LGBTQ community in this Sundance edition of BYOD hosted by Ondi Timoner.

Guest Bio

KIKI dives back into the fierce world of voguing battles in the Kiki scene of New York City, where competition between Houses demands leadership, painstaking practice, and performances on point. A film collaboration between Kiki gatekeeper, Twiggy Pucci Garçon, and Swedish filmmaker Sara Jordenö, grants exclusive access into this high stakes world, where tough competitions act as a gateway into the daily lives of LGBTQ youth of color in NYC. The new generation of ballroom youth use the motto, “Not About us Without Us.” Twiggy and Sara’s insider-outsider approach to their stories breathes fresh life into the representation of a marginalized community who demand visibility and real political power.

Sara Jordenö is a visual artist, documentary filmmaker, researcher and educator, my work is informed by discussions around authorship and agency, and resides in the crossing points of institutional critique, site-specific and public art, documentary cinema, and community-based participatory performative practice. My longitudinal projects often engage with communities facing different types of marginalization, and investigates their strategies of existing in the world.

Twiggy Pucci Garçon is a LGBT advocate, published model, runway trainer, and special events planner and coordinator. Twiggy has collaborated with artists, filmmakers, academics and policymakers to increase visibility of both creative and sociopolitical agendas. He and his work have been featured in major media publications like Paper Mag, NY Mag, The Huffington Post, The METRO Weekly, and The Advocate among others. He was also a featured subject in Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ and HBO’s documentary feature film, The OUT List.