2026 Utah Queer Film Festival: This Is Ballroom

Inspired by the landmark documentary Paris Is Burning, This Is Ballroom traces Rio de Janeiro’s vibrant ballroom scene back to its origins in the 1960s, when non-white drag performers created their own competitions in response to racial exclusion from mainstream pageants. Today, ballroom is a high-energy world of dance, fashion, and rivalry, where contestants battle in categories like face, runway, and old way amid music, chants, and roaring crowds. In Rio, ballroom becomes both refuge and battlefield—a space for queer and non-white performers to claim visibility, dignity, and power in a culture that demands excellence and punishes hesitation.