QUEER COGNITION: A Season of Cinema Beyond the Binary is a curated series (May–August 2025) celebrating the complexity, resilience, and radical creativity of queer lives around the world. Spanning decades and continents, the season centres voices that challenge convention, reclaim space, and reimagine identity beyond binaries. Presented in the lead-up to Pride London, Queer Cognition brings together groundbreaking narratives and documentaries that resist erasure and ignite cultural memory, exploring queerness as a living, evolving force, rooted in history and defined by collective creativity.

There will be networking drinks in the bar from 19:15 and after the screening.

Film Synopsis

Venus Xtravaganza emerged as a global trans icon after being featured as a glamorous “ball walker” in the groundbreaking 1991 documentary Paris Is Burning. Venus was murdered before that film’s release, and now, decades later, I’M YOUR VENUS picks up a trail gone cold as her two families—biological and ballroom—come together to honor her legacy, seek answers about her killing, and in the process find unexpected common ground. With a world premier at New York's Tribeca Film Festival and international premier at the BFI London Film Festival, award winning I’M YOUR VENUS is an intimate exploration of community, grief and resilience.

Dir: Kimberly Reed Prod: Steven Cantor / Jamie Schutz / Mike Stafford (p.g.a)

Trigger Warning: The film discusses prostitution and murder

This screening shall be introduced by award-winning writer-director producer and founder of G.O.A.T Film Club, Ebele Tate.

G.O.A.T Film Club is a movement for change in film and television. Our mission is to amplify Black & Global Majority, women, LGBTQIA+, and disabled voices, creating a space where underrepresented talent and passionate audiences converge. Through curated screenings, workshops, and exclusive networking events, we connect filmmakers and viewers, championing diverse stories and reshaping screen culture to reflect a global perspective. G.O.A.T Film Club redefines film and TV as a space where every voice finds its platform and every audience finds stories that resonate.

Insta: @g.o.a.t_filmclub

Programme supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London. Proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Network, funded by the National Lottery filmlondon.org.uk/film-hub-london