''I Am Divine'' is a 2013 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

produced and directed by

Jeffrey Schwarz Jeffrey Schwarz is an American Emmy Awards, Emmy Award-winning film producer, director, and editor. He is known for an extensive body of documentary work including ''Boulevard! A Hollywood Story'', ''The Fabulous Allan Carr'', ''Tab Hunter Confi ...

of the Los Angeles-based production company

Automat Pictures Automat Pictures is an American film and television production company based in Los Angeles, focusing on the production of independent films, original television programming, EPK, and Blu-ray and DVD added value. It was founded in 2000 by producer ...

. The documentary focuses on the American actor, singer and

drag performer The term "drag" refers to the performance of exaggerated masculinity, femininity, or other forms of gender expression, usually for entertainment purposes. A drag queen is someone (usually male) who performs femininity and a drag king is someone ( ...

Divine Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine

(October 19, 1945 – March 7, 1988), born Harris Glenn Milstead, a lifelong friend and collaborator of filmmaker

John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his Cinema of Transgression, transgressive cult films, including ''Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), ''Pink Flamin ...

. The film features extensive contemporary interviews with Waters, as well as Divine's mother Frances Milstead, and surviving members of the

Dreamlanders Dreamlanders are the cast and crew of regulars whom John Waters has used in his films. The term comes from the name of Waters' production company, Dreamland Productions. Many of the original Dreamlanders were friends of Waters from his native Bal ...

Participants

Tab Hunter Tab Hunter (born Arthur Andrew Kelm; July 11, 1931 – July 8, 2018) was an American actor, singer, film producer, and author. Known for his blond, clean-cut good looks, Hunter starred in more than forty films. He was a Hollywood heartthrob of t ...

Ricki Lake Ricki Pamela Lake (born September 21, 1968) is an American television host and actress. She is known for her lead role as Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film ''Hairspray'', for which she received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Be ...

Mink Stole Nancy Paine Stoll (born August 25, 1947), known professionally as Mink Stole, is an American actress from Baltimore, Maryland. She began her career working for director John Waters, and has appeared in all of his feature films to date (a distinc ...

George Figgs George Figgs (born 1947, Baltimore, Maryland) is an American actor and projectionist. He began his career portraying characters in the early films of John Waters. Because of his work with Waters, he is considered one of the Dreamlanders, Waters' ...

Bruce Vilanch Bruce Gerald Vilanch (born November 23, 1948) is an American comedy writer, songwriter and actor. He is a two-time Emmy Award-winner. Vilanch is best known to the public for his four-year stint on ''Hollywood Squares'', as a celebrity participan ...

Lisa Jane Persky Lisa Jane Persky (born May 5, 1955) is an American actress, journalist, author, artist, and photographer. She played supporting roles in the films ''The Great Santini'' (1979) ''Peggy Sue Got Married'' (1986) and '' When Harry Met Sally...'' (19 ...

David DeCoteau David DeCoteau (born January 5, 1962) is an American-Canadian film director and producer. Biography Early life David DeCoteau was born on January 5, 1962, in Portland, Oregon. Career He has worked professionally in the movie business since ...

Susan Lowe Susan Lowe (born Laura Susan Lowe on January 19, 1948 in Reidsville, North Carolina) is an American actress, educator and painter. She has appeared exclusively in the works of John Waters for most of her career, starring in ten of his films. Abo ...

Mary Vivian Pearce Mary Vivian Pearce (born November 9, 1947) is an American actress. She has worked primarily in the films of John Waters. Life and career Pearce is a childhood best friend of Waters and has appeared as an actress in all of his films. Because o ...

Jackie Beat Jackie Beat (born July 24, 1963) is the drag persona of actor, singer, songwriter and screenwriter Kent Fuher. Beat has appeared in a number of independent feature films both in and out of drag, including '' Wigstock: The Movie'', '' Flawless'', ...

Peaches Christ Peaches Christ (stage name for Joshua Grannell) is an American underground drag performer, emcee, filmmaker, and actor. Peaches currently resides in San Francisco where her Backlash Production Company and Midnight Mass movie series are based. Gra ...

Tammie Brown Tammie Brown is the stage name of Keith Glen Schubert (born September 15, 1980), an American drag performer, reality television personality, and recording artist. Brown was a fixture in the Southern California drag scene before appearing on the ...

Michael Musto Michael Musto (born December 3, 1955) is an American journalist who has long been a prevalent presence in entertainment-related publications, as well as on websites and television shows. Musto is best known as a columnist for ''The Village Voice ...

Holly Woodlawn Holly Woodlawn (October 26, 1946 – December 6, 2015) was a transgender Puerto Rican actress and Warhol superstar who appeared in the films ''Trash'' (1970) and '' Women in Revolt'' (1971). She is also known as the Holly in Lou Reed's hit glam r ...

;Archive footage * Harris Glenn Milstead/Divine * Edith Massey *

David Lochary David Crawford Lochary (August 21, 1944 – July 29, 1977) was an American actor, one of the regular "Dreamlander" actors in early films of the controversial "trash" film director John Waters. He starred in such films as ''Pink Flamingos'', ''Fem ...

Leo Ford Leo Ford (born Leo John Hilgeford; July 5, 1957 – July 17, 1991) was an American pornographic actor who appeared in List of performers in gay porn films#L, gay pornographic films and Bisexuality, bisexual pornographic movies and gay pornographic ...

* George Masters *

Tally Brown Tally Brown (August 1, 1924 – May 6, 1989) was a singing, singer and actress who was part of the New York underground performance scene, particularly Andy Warhol's The Factory, "Factory" and who appeared in or was the subject of films by Andy ...

Van Smith Walter Avant "Van" Smith, Jr. (August 17, 1945 - December 5, 2006) was an American costume designer and make-up artist. He worked primarily in the films of John Waters, designing the costumes and make-up for every John Waters film from 1972 to ...

Release

''I Am Divine''

premiered A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its first ...

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

2013, and had its premiere in Divine's hometown of

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, Maryland as part of the

Maryland Film Festival The Maryland Film Festival is an annual five-day international film festival taking place each May in Baltimore, Maryland. The festival was launched in 1999, and presents international film and video work of all lengths and genres. The festival ...

2013.

Reception

The film garnered critical acclaim, holding a 96% "Certified Fresh" rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 54 reviews; the general consensus states: "With warmth and affection, ''I Am Divine'' offers an engaging portrait of the complex personality behind a trailblazing cinematic figure." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a 70/100 rating based on 13 critics, signifying "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* * * * * 2013 films 2013 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about actors Documentary films about singers Films shot in Baltimore Kickstarter-funded documentaries Documentary films about LGBT film LGBT culture in Baltimore John Waters Films directed by Jeffrey Schwarz Drag (clothing)-related films 2013 LGBT-related films Documentary films about LGBT topics 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{LGBT-documentary-film-stub