The first feature film directed by Alexis Langlois, “The Queens of Drama” explores with intensity and humor the relationships between two women from opposite worlds. This tribute to the artists of the 2000s, with Bilal Hassani and Asia Argento, can be discovered in Geneva on November 2 as part of the GIFF.
In 2055, Steevyshady (Bilal Hassani), a hyper-botoxed YouTuber, recounts the incandescent destiny of his idol, the pop diva Mimi Madamour (Louiza Aura), from the height of her glory in 2005 to her descent into hell precipitated by her love story with punk icon Billie Kohler (Gio Ventura). For half a century, they sang their passion and their rage in the spotlight.
“Drama Queens” is a celebration of queer identity and love in all its forms. Alexis Langlois, who has been making short films for fifteen years, made his first feature film with a predominantly queer team, in front of and behind the camera. “We didn’t have a voice for a very long time,” he explains. Filming with these people was a political will and a way of celebrating their talents,” he explains in Question genre on October 25.
The director chose to make a musical, a genre he appreciates. “What I particularly like is that everything we believe to be artificial is a way of going directly to the heart of the protagonists. It is never gratuitous: a song always reflects interiority and emotions characters.”
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The strength of the standard
In “Drama Queens”, Mimi Madamour cannot reconcile her identity as a lesbian with her passion for music. She is forced to choose between the two and therefore cannot truly be herself. His punk lover, Billie Kohler, frees herself from patriarchal norms and adopts a radically different relationship with the world. But in the end, the freer of the two is perhaps not the one we think.
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Some progress is never really achieved, recalls Alexis Langlois. “The enormous force of the norm can crush us, as it destroys the two lovers in the film. We must find spaces and different ways of loving, to try not to be crushed by the norm. Because even if we think we don’t suffer it, we still suffer it”, underlines the director.
Comments collected by Christine Gonzalez
Adaptation web: Melissa Härtel
“The Queens of Drama” by Alexis Langlois, to be seen at the GIFF, in Geneva, on November 2, 2024 then in December at the Sputnik cinema, in Geneva.
