Paris Is Burning [program for the Gala San Francisco Benefit Premiere]

San Francisco: the Gala, [1991]. 5 ½ x 8 ½ in. Offset. Single folded sheet.

Program for San Francisco gala screening of Paris Is Burning, four days before the commercial release. This premiere was a fundraiser for the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention and Lavendar Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC), and featured performances from several of the film’s stars.

Paris Is Burning documented drag balls of the mid 1980s and the associated queer cultures in New York City at a moment when those cultures were being decimated by the AIDS epidemic and gentrification. Despite the film’s widespread commercial and critical success, it is important to note that the subjects did not receive the same financial boon. Several threatened to sue filmmaker, Jennie Livingston, unhappy with the limited or non-existent compensation, though they were ultimately unsuccessful. Paris Is Burning remains one of the most important documentaries of queer culture.

Not on OCLC. Fine.