Avant-Drag! review – queer artists light up the streets of Athens with joy and resistance

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Drag is a tool of self-expression and of protest in this kaleidoscopic portrait of the city’s vibrant underground art The queer defiance of Fil Ieropoulos’s kaleidoscopic documentary manifests not only through its subject, but also through its form. Centring on a group of drag performers and gender-nonconforming artists in Athens, this shape-shifting film celebrates a vibrant underground scene that thrives in a homophobic system, rife with state-sanctioned discrimination and violence. Introduced through an episodic structure, figures from the community light up the screen with their artistry and activism as they carve out a safe haven of their own. In each of the vignettes, we get a glimpse of both the joy and the peril of navigating the city as a queer person. Decked out in extravagant costumes and makeup inspired by Leigh Bowery, Kangela Tromokratisch struts in towering high heels, while her drag performances, with their vaudevillian feel, parody heteronormative ideals of motherhoo...
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Michaela Coel says film industry misses out on marginalised communities

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I May Destroy You writer and actor is set to take on new mentoring role for upcoming film-makers

The entertainment industry continues to miss out on “incredible voices from marginalised and oppressed communities”, the multi award-winning writer and actor Michaela Coel has warned as she prepares to take on a new mentoring role for upcoming film-makers.

Coel’s HBO/BBC comedy-drama I May Destroy You was the most critically acclaimed television programme of 2020. Often referred to as “one of the UK’s most influential women”, she will take a lead role in the new BMW Filmmaking Challenge being launched in partnership with the BFI, offering advice to five shortlisted film-makers.

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