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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Carmen review – Paul Mescal’s moves will have his fanbase melting

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Mescal and Melissa Barrera lead this modern-day version of Bizet’s opera, which awkwardly combines tough realism with high-gloss romance

This film contains a scene with maximum meme potential: Normal People’s Paul Mescal breaks into expressionist dance, leaping through the air, soulfully twisting his body with the agony of a broken heart. It will have the Mescalmania fanbase melting into puddles. But really it’s his acting not his ballet that carries off this reimagining of Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera. Updated to modern day Mexico and the US, it’s a heartfelt, extravagant film, swirling with melodrama and music.

The story opens in Mexico, where Carmen (Melissa Barrera) flees north to the US after her flamenco dancer mother is killed by drug cartel thugs. Meanwhile, across the border in Texas, Mescal plays Aidan, an ex-marine who reluctantly takes a job with a patrol that cruises the border picking up illegals. On his first night there is a terrible incident: his colleague opens fire on a truck in which Carmen is a passenger. Aidan and Carmen go on the run.

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