Piss Elegance

Billie, a trans elder, re-enacts her life and her role in American queer history as she prepares to enter the afterlife.

Billie Bertan is a living legend, an 84-year-old trans woman who has survived against all odds and is finally ready to tell the story of her outrageous life. Our film tells a true story through fantastic lenses.  After a car accident, Billie's ghost recounts her life story, in her own words, re-enacting it all for the camera.

Arriving in the gay underworld of New York in 1957 as a baby-faced 16-year old, Billie quickly learns how to hustle and steal to survive. With her fellow street queens, she dodges cops seeking to arrest her for female impersonation. Never content to stay in one place for long, Billie is constantly moving between worlds, meeting Warhol groupies and cult members, counterculture icons and heroin addicts. 

But life is dangerous for those who dare to be themselves. Billie flees a steady beat of funerals in New York in 1971. In San Francisco, she finds a city where "freaks and squares collide". After losing the love of her life to her growing alcoholism, Billie hits rock bottom and gets sober. Billie shares the lessons of her recovery from addiction, which become crucial when the AIDS epidemic hits and her community needs help. Getting old was never part of the plan, but Billie is making it her greatest act yet, fulfilling the dreams of stardom that addiction stole. 

This is both the story of one incredible life and of a world which has been omitted from the historical record. 

Writer/Director: Ray Crist

Lead Actress: Billie Bertan

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