Eight Years Before Paris Is Burning, Two Italians Shot the First Ballroom Documentary

Italian documentary TV Transvestite spotlights Sugar, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and a world that would soon be transformed by the AIDS epidemic.

Eight years before Paris Is Burning, two Italian filmmakers set out to document New York’s ballroom scene. Titled TV Transvestite, it was filmed in the span of 24 hours at the 1982 House of LaBeija Ball inside a bingo hall located on Harlem’s 125th Street. The film was considered “lost” and not screened in public for over two decades, and features legends Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Sugar in the period before voguing and right before the AIDS epidemic would decimate the community.

Directed by Michele Capozzi and Simone de Bagno, it was initially screened in Rome with Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni in the audience. In the U.S., it was screened at Paradise Garage in front of Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.

TV Transvestite resumed being screened around its 30th anniversary in 2012. Please note that while the in-universe language might sound outdated in 2026, it reflects the reality of the early 1980s.