“Another rubbish that promotes degeneration”, “pure weirdos”, “is that where my taxes go?”, “transvestism is not culture”, “put out vomit bags”. These are some of the subtleties that the announcement of the most recent premiere of Peruvian cinema has raised: Lima burns, the first documentary that will bring a dozen drag queens to the big screen of the local scene. An event in a country that does not have a Gender Identity Law, which recorded 88 hate crimes against the LGBTIQ+ population between 2012 and 2021 and which two weeks ago published a decree that qualifies them as mentally ill.
It is a mid-week morning at the cultural center of a Lima university and around thirty journalists have been summoned for an exclusive function, prior to the commercial premiere on May 30. The film finished filming at the end of 2022, but chance has wanted it to be shown in theaters just these days, as a provocative and immediate response from the community. In a couple of hours, six drag queens and one drag king – a rare variant – will burst into the room, with their bizarre wigs, corseted dresses, eyelashes that fan the atmosphere, stiletto heels that look like stilts, and high doses of glitter and sequins, so as not to leave anyone indifferent.
But that is still missing. Before he avant-premiere becomes a catwalk, a man with thinning hair and a dark T-shirt who would go unnoticed greets the attendees. It’s Alberto Castro Antezana, the director. A filmmaker who, at 34 years old, has completed a film trilogy on LGBTIQ+ themes. First was drag invasion, a film that portrays the unprecedented visit of a group of American drag queens to Peru in 2017; after coming out of the closet, an audiovisual that revolves around the testimonies of ten homosexual men about what it meant to accept themselves; and now Lima burnswhose name is a nod to the legendary nineties documentary Paris is burning.
He financed the first two with his savings and pro-fund parties, and for his third work Castro Antezana won an economic stimulus contest, organized by the Ministry of Culture. Just as The Most Feared Skin by Joel Calero unleashed a hunt from sectors that are irritated that the State finances a film that is set in the context of the period of violence of the eighties and nineties and that, furthermore, does so with its nuances, The same has happened with Arde Lima: those who criticize it grab their pockets and repeat, wildly: “Let them do what they want with their money, but not with that of all Peruvians.”
Outside the room, minutes before the performance begins, the director responds with the calmness of someone who is used to being attacked from time to time. “It’s overwhelming, but this time I have felt that half of the comments are loving. The community has always been invisible, many of us have grown up without references and the film inspires many people to finally feel represented. I hope it gives hope to those people who are trapped in violent family spaces and do not feel free to be,” says Castro Antezana, who also caused an earthquake when he confessed to his parents that he was homosexual and that he wanted to make films.
If there is something that distinguishes this documentary, it is that compared to other productions with LGBTIQ+ themes, it is not presented from the point of suffering, from the multiple rejections they suffer, but from a celebratory tone. “We are survivors, we face a terrible society that looks at you with disgust and doesn’t give you opportunities, but we also enjoy and create art,” says the director, who says he was empowered thanks to the energy of drag when he was still repressed.
Arde Lima does not have a single protagonist. She episodically narrates the daily lives of a handful of drag performers, diverse in their art: Tany de la Riva, an accomplished dancer who will step into the performance in a skimpy police suit; Ernesto Pimentel, who for decades has played a woman in skirts baptized as The chola Chabuca and that, in addition, he stars in a circus with his character—an island for the guild—; and Stacy Malibú, a drag activist who will allow the public to see part of her transformation, an enigma for those who do not know that they do their own makeup, design their costumes and prepare their choreographies. They know about singing and sewing, as well as animation. And they have the resources to solve all kinds of obstacles on the fly. Much more than a flowing wig or a tight panty.
![The drags Go Diva and Harmoniken the preview of the film](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/BJY7QFP6ARDN7CPLJNJGQI4JYI.jpg?auth=ecfc2afb07f782c33d3c547c8ea4c7764fd714e69300f5bb34d52189c9e3cfc2&width=414)
The conversation with seven of them does not take place in solemnities. Their approach with the press quickly turns into a gathering, where for several moments they tell details that they just don’t share. AlessAndro, a trans boy with a blue beard who is one of the few drag kings in Lima, will talk about the scars he has on his breasts from applying adhesive tape to hide them and how he started using tempera paints when he couldn’t afford to buy makeup. Harmonik, a seasoned drag queen who has spent twenty years parading her art in nightclubs, will say that she plans to go to the premiere only with her mother because she was the only one who supported her, when she had to admit with shame that she was not a children’s party entertainer. Georgia Hart, a sequin-clad drag performer who starred in a play last year at the Grand National Theatre, will share how bad she had it as a teenager because her dance teachers forbade any hint of femininity in her steps. .
“There is a notion that drags are men dressed as women, when drag is actually questioning gender, everything that we were taught that being a man or a woman entails,” says Dark Princess, a voluminous drag with blonde hair who It resembles that of a lion, whose red lace dress cost her a dawn, since she sewed it herself. Regarding the decree, published by the Ministry of Health, which includes transsexualism in the category of mental disorders, La Langosta, a robust drag in a blue dress and orange wig, and Go Diva, a curvy drag with a jet black wig, consider that Arde Lima is a necessary film because it challenges the status quo and the ultra-conservatism of a pacific country that attacks them even when they go to a hospital for treatment.
Alberto Castro Antezana’s third documentary, which is causing so much bile on social networks, will mark the beginning of the Pride Month celebrations. It will also be a tribute to Stacy Malibu, who died of pneumonia in mid-2020 with some scenes to film. The cast has committed to visiting theaters with everything that entails. Plenty of courage. To paraphrase the song that was conceived for the film: they are goddesses, queens and scandalous. They are all that makes Peru uncomfortable.
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