Lights, camera, production

In many ways, it looks like your typical prom story: mulling over an outfit to fit the theme, messing up makeup right before the dance begins, equal parts anxiety and excitement over how the night goes.

But when 16-year-old Ava is shopping for her prom dress, it carries a special weight. It’ll be her first time wearing a dress since coming out as transgender.

Ava’s story, and those of other attendees at The Andy Warhol Museum’s LGBTQ+ Youth Prom last year, are the subject of (pride/prom), a feature-length documentary from the museum’s boutique production studio, The Warhol Creative.

The 2024 prom was the event’s 10th anniversary, and the theme—Welcome to the Queernival—gave the team at The Warhol Creative an opportunity to explore the emotional depth of the queer experience: joy, hardship, and all the gray areas in between.

Ava accidentally came out to her mother, Chrissy, in a message intended for someone else. When Chrissy found out, she hugged Ava.

But the film doesn’t shy away from the messy parts: In a tearful interview, Chrissy admits she struggles to use she/her pronouns for Ava, often settling on they/them or occasionally misgendering her.

“I want to be that safe place for my kid,” she says in the film. “As a parent, that’s what you should be. Your kids should always be able to come to you as who they are, and you just accept them.”

News clips about anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and sentiments make up a small part of the film’s narrative, but the challenges the young people face is only one part of their experience.

New York-based director Sam McCoy let the subjects of the film guide it, and the documentary is imbued with giddy excitement. In one scene, Vlad, a 16-year-old transgender boy, draws on a villainous curled mustache for the prom. In another, Chrissy refuses to stop saying “body-ody-ody” when discussing the fit of dresses on her daughter, much to Ava’s dismay.

“It was all about capturing them and their essence and them as human beings,” says McCoy, who uses they/them pronouns. “It really was documentation and making sure that they were being captured authentically.”

During a private screening in March, the audience was rarely quiet, sharing laughs as Ava and her mom bantered while dress shopping and ooo’ing and aww’ing as the kids tried on outfits. When the credits rolled, a chorus of cheers and whistles carried through the theater.

“It was all about capturing them and their essence and them as human beings. It really was documentation and making sure that they were being captured authentically.”

–Sam McCoy, Director of (pride/prom)

The team at The Warhol Creative turned the film around in just a few months after the prom in June 2024, bolstered by a capable team of The Warhol Academy filmmaking and postproduction fellows in The Pop District office next door to the museum.

A sizzle—or short promotional video—for (pride/prom) produced in 2023 even attracted the eye of one of Pittsburgh’s most established queer figures, actor and singer Billy Porter, and The Brutalist producer D.J. Gugenheim, both of whom became executive producers.

The project gave fellows—and former fellows turned Warhol Creative hires like Aaliyah Lewis and Ezra Jones—their first film credits. From the sizzle  to the final cut, upwards of 30 fellows worked on the film.

“For most of us, this is our first feature-length film credit,” says Jones, assistant editor and junior producer. “We all have IMDb pages now, whether it be editor or producer—that’s an awesome thing to have that you can show people and say, ‘Hey, yeah, this is what I’ve done.’”

There will be a public screening of the film at The Warhol on June 20. And while there are no plans for a film at this year’s prom, that won’t stop Vlad from planning an elaborate outfit for the cryptid-themed dance.

At a panel after the screening, Vlad says the film has a simple but important message: “community, community, community.”

“As we have this communication with each other and this love for each other and this support for each other,” Vlad says, “we will continue to survive, and not only to survive, but to flourish.”