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Sweden, United States · 2017
1h 34m
Director Sara Jordenö
Starring Twiggy Pucci Garçon
Genre Documentary
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This captivating documentary dives back into the fierce world of voguing battles in the Kiki scene of New York City a quarter century after Paris is Burning first introduced the world to the expressive dance style. High stakes competition between Houses demands leadership, painstaking practice, and pointed performance.
The Film Stage by Daniel Schindel
The love these characters have for their lifestyle is obvious, as is their reasons for rejecting mainstream society for it, but the joy they receive from it is not conveyed to the viewer. Without that, Kiki is a decent survey of its chosen topic, but rarely anything more.
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
An uplifting sense emerges of the resilience through community of youth who are marginalized, abandoned, isolated, bullied or sexually exploited.
Slant Magazine by Diego Semerene
When compared to the high-stakes dramas at the center of Paris Is Burning, where sex workers dreamed of becoming supermodels, Kiki feels rather tame.
Screen International by Fionnuala Halligan
Sad, proud, loud, funny, energetic and affecting, Kiki the documentary reflects accurately the spirit of kiki, the scene.
The New York Times by Glenn Kenny
Kiki shows us a group of brave and beautiful souls for whom the struggle is, unfortunately, probably about to get even harder.
Los Angeles Times by Justin Chang
Kiki often casts a rueful gaze, but it’s also exuberant and alive, and never despairing. It leaves you with the bracing sense that however tough and resilient its subjects might be forced to become, their hope of a better, more tolerant future will never go out of style.
As underground and DIY as the kiki scene might be, it’s still highly organized, and part of what Kiki expresses is this community organization as a strategy for survival. The struggle is real, and it’s hard to imagine how they keep pushing that boulder up the hill — being fully themselves in the face of so much hardship — but they are tough, and united.
It’s a kaleidoscopic and vivid rendering of a world that is larger than life, flamboyant but ultimately fragile.
Regrettably, Kiki seems far less interested in entertainment than activism.
RogerEbert.com by Sheila O'Malley
With music by Qween Beat, Kiki shows the new generation of the ballroom scene, their care for one another, their awareness of the struggles ahead, their determination to be themselves, against all odds. They are scared, but they are strong.
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