HOUSE OF VELVET

House of Velvet follows a day in the life of the members of Kiki House of Velvet, moving between fragments of their everyday realities and the moments when they reunite within the safety of their chosen family. As the outside world fades away, choreographed moments blend seamlessly with lived experiences, revealing how ballroom culture shapes their lives, and how their lives in turn shape the culture.

Born in the late 1960s in the United States from the oppression faced by African American and Latinx trans women, ballroom culture has long been a space of self expression, resistance, and liberation for marginalized queer communities. Today it remains vibrant across the world, from New York to Paris and beyond. In Central and Eastern Europe, it has emerged in a different social and political context, yet it continues to honor its original purpose. What may appear to some as purely performative or fashion driven is, for others, a deeply activist practice. Every category of realness, fashion, body, and performance carries the history of struggles faced by queer, trans, and BIPOC communities, many of which remain painfully present today, especially in this region.