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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‘Cosmetic surgery? Just wear a hat!’ US sitcom legends Jane Curtin and Harriet Sansom Harris on AI, ageing and aliens

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They are veterans of everything from Frasier to 3rd Rock from the Sun. As the duo make the leap into sci-fi with alien caper Jules, they reveal the secrets to a long career – and make a plea for smarter, quieter movies

Jane Curtin and Harriet Sansom Harris are best known in the UK for their roles in big 1990s sitcoms. Curtin was Mary Albright, sceptical professor and the object of John Lithgow’s affections in 3rd Rock from the Sun. Harris played Bebe Glazer, Frasier’s purringly machiavellian agent.

In the US, both are comedy veterans. Curtin, now 76, began in the first seasons of Saturday Night Live, then won back-to-back Emmys for divorcee double act Kate & Allie. Harris, 68, has had stints on Desperate Housewives and Hacks, but spent most of her career on stage – she trained at Julliard with Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Reeves and Robin Williams and has been a Broadway fixture for 30 years, winning a Tony in 2002 for Throughly Modern Millie.

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