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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Bobi Wine: The People’s President review – shocking look at Ugandan star’s campaign

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For five years, documentary-makers followed the musician and politician as he attempted to challenge the country’s reigning autocratic leader

“I am not a criminal. I am a presidential candidate.” That’s Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu – AKA Bobi Wine – speaking from inside a police van, his face pressed to the bars after being arrested for the umpteenth time. Wine is a Ugandan pop superstar; his music has earned him the nickname “Ghetto President”. This intense, raw documentary, shot over five years, follows his attempt to become Uganda’s actual president – challenging the long-reigning autocrat Yoweri Museveni. It’s an intimate portrait combined with increasingly shocking footage as his opposition movement comes under attack.

Wine is a man with intoxicating charisma, and a cracking backstory. He grew up in a Kampala slum, pulling himself up by his bootstraps, paying his own way through university and launching a music career. His childhood made him fearless, he says. At university he met his wife Barbie; at home with their four children we see what a solid rock their marriage is. Wine stood as an MP in 2017, angry at proposals by Museveni – clinging to power after more than 30 years – to change the constitution to remove the upper age limit for presidents.

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