KCL Strand Film Festival: Female Spy Characters w/ D.E.B.S (2004)

Paging all agents! The eighth KCL Strand Film Festival presents a special screening of the spy film spoof D.E.B.S (2004).

Angela Robinson reimagines the spy movie subgenre in her iconic first feature film, challenging the portrayal of women and heteronormativity.

In the film's shiny and glossy universe, schoolgirls are recruited to a top-secret spy agency called D.E.B.S (Discipline, Energy, Beauty, Strength). Top-agent, Amy, seems destined for a brilliant spy career, but everything changes when she encounters Lucy, the famous criminal she and her team are duty-bound to stop.

This queer cult classic was nominated for two Black Movie Awards and won the Berlin International Film Festival's Reader Jury of the magazine Siegessäule.

"D.E.B.S. is a campy, queer triumph, poking fun at genre conventions and maintaining its tongue-in-cheek, self-aware energy to deliver a lesbian rom-com-spy-romp mashup that remains unmatched by queer cinema to this day." - Anna Govert, Paste.

The KCL Strand Film Festival (29 November - 6 December 2024) takes place at King's College London's Strand campus, and is curated by students on the Film Festivals and Film Festival Studies module in the Department of Film Studies.