If you liked Roger Horn’s The Sisterhood at last year’s Festival, here’s more – Lauren Beukes’ peek behind the drag curtain at Miss Gay Western Cape has echoes of Horn’s story of Hazendal farmhands Pietie, Hope and Rollie. Beukes’ boys however, come from harder neighbourhoods on the Cape Flats and it’s the contradiction of Barbie-girls-in-gangstaland that fascinate her. Preparing for the event are a host of hopefuls; Kat the Princess, Eva the Mechanic, Kayden the Pre-Op and Janet Jackson among them. Interviews reveal the real people behind the stage names, and as rehearsals in the Joseph Stone Auditorium get underway, it’s as much about the rigours of a large production – timing, focus, music cues, placement – as about the body issues common to all; will I be good enough, will the pageant take to a plus-sized person? Beukes has a novelist’s eye for detail as well as a theatrical flare, evident in her dramatic reconstructions of childhood scenes, and sneaky camerawork capturing stolen looks between backstagers. Touching, engaging, the film is ultimately a beautifully crafted ode to (re)creation, memory and courage under fire.