Avant-Drag! (Greek Documentary)

This Greek documentary celebrates the radical roots and ongoing bravery of queer performers who defy gender norms, especially in more conservative societies. The film takes portrait of ten provocative, gender-exploding artists from Greece’s queer underground. One after the other, they introduced themselves, their type of drag, their message and their influences. After these solo sections, they all get together to discuss the drag sphere in Athens, what it means to do this art and how it is met by the Greek society.

Habit-clad, heavy make-up-wearing Er Libido hands leaflets encouraging unsuspecting drivers to support abortion. Aurora Paola defaces the Greek flag by painting the Albanian one on top of it (potentially a criminal offense?). Veronique plays opera for the police. These subversive artists seek to infuse the deeply conservative European capital with a message of tolerance and hope. They vigorously confront racism, xenophobia, LGBTQ-phobia, fascism, jingoism, and the dirty machinations of the traditional family and unfettered capitalism. Their message is graffitied on the walls, bins and placards. The oldest case study featured here is Kangela Tromokratisch, a middle-aged “riot housewife” who modeled her garish, surreal look on her hero, Australian fashion designer and performance artist Leigh Bowery. Following a traumatic childhood, Kangela says her drag alter ego is “a much more complete version of myself.” Another visually striking act is the male-female duo, Parakatyanova and SerGay Parakatyanov, who combine opera and drag in a witty parody of traditional gender roles. Their fabulous, outlandish costumes are, they claim, “mirrors that show the ridiculousness of our enemies.” And many more like these.

Avant-Drag! is a sobering reminder that drag was not always wholesome family entrainment but an edgy, marginalized subculture often born form trauma, rejection and violence. In socially and religious conservative nations like Greece, stepping outside gender norms is still brave and often dangerous. It mainly consists of concise artist profiles that blend conventional interview material with short performance pieces shot on vintage-looking video. Each chapter is loosely linked by poetic chunks of narration.The episodic structure becomes repetitive in places, and much of the film is too light on background context. The film culminates in a dinner party bringing together all the performers, who share a lively discussion about fear and shame, cancel culture, pink-washing, HIV survivor’s guilt, the meagre financial rewards of experimental art, and more. The intentions of the documentary were right And I can see how a lot of people will be able to connect with it, but it was just not for me. (2.5/10)