I'm Your Venus OTT Release Date: When & where to watch documentary tribute to Venus Xtravaganza
What's it about?
Directed by Kimberly Reed, the film picks up nearly 35 years after Venus's death. It follows her three brothers, John, Joe, and Louie Pellagatti, as they sift through old police records, fight for a posthumous name change, and search for answers. Alongside them are members of the House of Xtravaganza, including House Mother Gisele Alicea and other prominent figures from the ballroom scene.
Across home visits, legal meetings, and heartfelt interviews, the two families form a bridge between different worlds, biological and chosen, united by love and loss. The documentary also weaves in archival footage from Paris Is Burning, showing Venus in her own words and moves. Her voguing, her dreams of modelling, her raw interviews, these are revisited, reminding viewers of just how alive and present she was, even before the tragedy struck.
Behind the scenes
Kimberly Reed isn't new to documentaries; she previously made award-winning films like Prodigal Sons and Dark Money. She produced I'm Your Venus with Jamie Schutz, Steven Cantor, and Mike Stafford, working alongside cinematographers Rose Bush and Joshua Z. Weinstein. The film was edited by Eric Daniel Metzgar, Michael Palmieri, and supervising editor Dava Whisenant, who helped tie together the old and the new into a seamless narrative, 80 to 85 minutes of emotional storytelling.
Executive producers Jonovia Chase, Dominique Jackson, David Linde, Jennie Livingston (who directed Paris Is Burning), Henry Schleiff, and Courtney Sexton lend their voices and perspectives to help shape this tribute.
Venus's life and legacy
Born Venus Pellagatti on May 5, 1965, in Jersey City, New Jersey, she became involved in drag and performance in her teens. By the early 1980s, she'd joined the House of Xtravaganza, one of the most iconic houses in New York's ballroom world. Paris Is Burning immortalised her, and her presence still resonates today.
But her life was cut short on December 21, 1988, when she was found strangled in a New York City hotel room. Her case went cold and remained unsolved. In 2022, thanks in part to the efforts sparked by this documentary, her murder was re-examined. The NYPD reopened the case, and her family successfully changed her name legally to Venus Pellagatti Xtravaganza, symbolic acts meant to restore her to history and fight for recognition.
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