‘It’s a film about how difficult it can be for queer people to love in a world that doesn’t love them’: Alexis Langlois on ‘Queens of Drama’

Alexis Langlois’ queer, pop-punk musical debut feature, Queens of Drama (2024, Les reines du drame), spans the decades-long rise-and-fall careers and romance between the titular musical divas, pop star Mimi Madamour (Louiza Aura) and punk icon Billie Kohler (Gio Ventura), as narrated by ultra-fan Steevyshady (genderqueer French pop star Bilal Hassani). Pure camp in all its glory, the film sparkled its way through a world premiere in the 2024 Cannes Critics’ Week (Semaine de la Critique).

In the run-up to the film’s screening at the 2025 BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, Purple Hour spoke to the filmmaker about drawing from the narrative form of fairytales, evoking universal reference points regardless of a viewer’s background, and encouraging a more open world and more sincere cinema.

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Purple Hour: I find that your films aren’t necessarily focused on representation. Rather, they exude the essence of “queer”. How does the idea of representation play a role when you create characters and in the development of your aesthetic?

Alexis Langlois: The question of representation is indeed at the heart of the project without really being at the heart of it. For me, when making queer films, there are political and aesthetic dimensions that must be connected. It’s true that in the films I make, I try to have queer actors, meaning non-heterosexual or at least people who are very much part of my community. It’s mainly a way of trying, both in the mise-en-scène and in the casting, to always have a desire to have people who are different from what we always see in cinema. For example, there are romantic comedies with gay or lesbian characters where we get the impression that they’ve just removed the straight characters and put in [queer] characters. They’re the same stories, the same types of characters, the same types of people—even the same actors. In addition to making queer cinema in the sense of a real difference, my desire is also to think about our representation as not necessarily linked to the straight gaze. It’s in the writing, in the casting, in the team behind it—really trying to think in terms of community and to break free as much as possible from a straight gaze, even if it’s difficult.

Your short films The Demons of Dorothy (2021, Les démons de Dorothy) and Terror, Sisters! (2019, De la terreur, mes soeurs!) have elements of rage or vengeance and felt directly political. I find that Queens of Drama is not not political, but the politics are not negligible.

Yes, but I think it’s perhaps less direct now because what the film tells me is still how the norm infiltrates everywhere. Even if we try to live in opposition to or disconnected from the norm, it will always show up and ultimately make us suffer. All the characters in the film would like to be something and they are prevented at some point. But the film indeed tries to link two things: the political dimension and the emotional one. Usually, those are two things that don’t go very well together. In short films, it’s easier to be more confrontational. In a feature film, it’s [different]. Mimi and Billie are constantly told that they don’t go together because they’re not from the same background, so the idea was to create connections where people don’t see any. Between emotions, politics, and form, the film comes to life through formal questions while trying to mix cinema genres. It was kind of trying to move in the opposite direction of what is imposed on the characters.

The film is very innovative in its narrative form as well, but the importance of the storyteller remains the same. We have this love story between the characters of Billie and Mimi connected to Steevyshady, an obsessive but endearing character. Why was it so important for you to have this character of Steevy tell their story?

All of the characters love in different ways, and they don’t love very well. Steevy, for me, embodies this because [the character depicts] a type of one-sided love [amour sans objet]. Fans dream of their idols; they feel they have a special relationship with them. With Steevy, this takes on a very intense proportion. But I find nothing more beautiful in cinema than showing love larger than life. It was also important to show all these facets of love that function poorly and people who fail, whom we forgive. I really like the idea of reintroducing an almost classic narrative of melodramas or fairytales. I find it easier to speak through the medium of tales, for they possess a certain mythological quality that allows us to better examine ourselves. Perhaps when they are set in a more contemporary world, this dimension of storytelling facilitates an understanding that resonates all the more powerfully with what is happening today—unfortunately, with the global rise of fascism.

The film also questions what makes us cool, what makes us tacky, and what makes us in tune with the times. I thought of YouTube as something that would be considered outdated in 50 years, to imagine this tacky character still using YouTube. There’s a bit of a “wheel of fortune” motif in the film. Characters experience their rise and fall. It was also important to talk precisely about today’s world and to say, “Be careful, our rights as queer people are fragile, and we need to be a little gentle with each other.”

I really enjoyed Reas (2024) by Lola Arias, which was set in a prison but was also a musical. It was a bit like your film in the sense of the English phrase, “to wear one’s heart on their sleeve”. It made me think a lot about liberation but in prison, where your protagonists meet in the end. Like the idea of the rise and fall as you said, the idea of punishment and even forgiveness is interesting—not necessarily in a Christian sense. 

Several people have asked me, are they dead? Do all these divas have to live locked up to be happy? Would the secret to happiness be to live in a somewhat isolated community? I don’t know. I think everything is a bit possible, and it’s more of a metaphorical space for me. There are people who see it as confinement. For me, the small space of the stage is a world that opens up for me—it’s a place where everything is possible, like in children’s fairytales where we open a door with the impression that there’s going to be a small, enclosed space. But when the door opens up it’s actually an open space—a mental space or something else. Maybe to be free we’ll have to live hidden.

I also love the names you chose for the characters. Can you talk a little bit about the influences or combinations or how the names were mixed? Maybe audience members create their own interpretations?

It’s indeed a film that has many references, but the idea was that the film needed to have its own internal system. Apart from the Spice Girls and Monique Wittig, who are named, all the singers are inventions. Still, they had to evoke things, so each character is a sort of mixture of lots of references. Mimi is a combination of French singers Lorie and Alizée, and obviously, Britney Spears. For there to be some universality, they had to be singers who were both familiar and, at the same time, possess something unique. What was very funny was that I presented the film in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Audiences said, “Ah, that reminds us of this singer, that story.” This speaks to the fact that these mythologies are everywhere. It reminded them of singers I didn’t know. There’s also something very childish in the sounds, sometimes puns, sometimes wordplay with singers who exist. 

At the beginning of the film, we see Mimi as a young singer with natural curls. Gradually, the industry transforms her body. Could you talk about your approach regarding the changes in physical appearance?

As soon as Mimi enters the mainstream machine, there’s the incredibly important question of hair. We thought about it with the actress who plays Mimi, Louiza Aura, because this dimension exists and it was necessary to depict. Moreover, in those years [early on in the film, which begins in 2005], there were still relatively few people of colour. One can just imagine the violence involved if a person of colour enters the entertainment industry—just to exist in it and then be forced to conform to certain things. There’s the gesture of shaving the hair, which is an act of liberation. This is the moment when she reclaims possession of her image and her body, almost trying to give another meaning to the imagery that exists collectively in our minds. When it was written in the script, Mimi ended up with a shaved head. But it was Louiza who told me, “Wait, for her entire life, people have forced her to change her hair! At the beginning, she has her curly afro so she should have a white afro at the end!” And I told her, “Obviously, you’re right—we’ll follow her journey to its conclusion.” She needs to finally find herself with her hair as she truly wants to have it. But this was really the actress’ idea. 

50 years pass, and the body of Billie changes as well. How about Billie and Steevy? 

Billie takes the opposite path. This is someone who criticises cosmetic surgery at the beginning. As the film progresses, she experiments with her persona and eventually becomes a non-binary character, at once extremely masculine—there are all these muscles—yet also feminine. One of the inspirations is one of my idols, Pete Burns. And Steevy, likewise—he ends up with his prosthetics. Since he remained a bit as he was in those years. He remained stuck in the 2010s. So when we find him at 60 years old at the end, he has tried to remain who he was in 2015. 

There’s a lot of tenderness and sincerity in Queens of Drama that is not often seen in film.

It’s a pleasure to hear that. That touches me deeply. This is a film that also traverses very violent things. Sometimes people stop and say, “Ah, it’s a relationship…a film celebrating toxicity.” Actually, it’s not at all. It’s just a film about violence and how difficult it can be for queer people to love in a world that doesn’t love them. I think it’s important to show characters who make mistakes in order to try to do better, to be gentler. That’s why the dimension of forgiveness is significant in the film. Perhaps it begins with being gentle, but not being too demanding. All of the characters in the film were written with tremendous love and directed with love. Even if they are sometimes dark characters, it was important to simply love them deeply.

Because the film will be screened at BFI Flare, are there any reference points to pop culture or slang that might not be translatable for British audiences or English-only audiences, in your opinion?

It was quite a translation challenge for both the songs and the dialogue because there’s a lot of French slang, especially French from the 2000s. It’s a somewhat strange language, even for French people sometimes. But I believe the subtitles are still quite good. We worked quite hard to ensure that at least the spirit of the film was transcribed. Then, there are the songs where I still have the impression that the spirit of the film is conveyed even if people miss the subtleties. If they do, then too bad. No subtlety for them.

In English, the title is Queens of Drama. In French, it could be back-translated as “Les reines de drame” rather than its original French title, Les reines du drame. But “les reines de drame” could also mean “drama queens”. Is that the point?

Yes—in French, it’s a bit of a joke. We don’t actually use the phrase “les reines du drame” in French. It’s already a literal translation of the expression of “drama queens”. These are characters who don’t know how to manage their emotions, or at least who have a way of expressing their emotions that’s not natural or realistic. The film also plays with that—it twists this expression a bit literally. On the other hand, it’s a very sincere way of expressing emotions in their own way, like wearing their heart on their sleeves as you said earlier. That’s exactly it.

How has the film been received by different spectators or in different festivals?

In general, people are still rather receptive, which is pleasantly surprising and a rather joyful experience. Sometimes, there are also people who are a bit shocked, but most are touched by it. What touches me the most is when there are queer people of all different ages who tell me, “Ah, if I had seen this film when I was younger, it would have changed things.” I tell myself I’m happy that the film exists just for that.