Orlando, My Political Biography

One hundred years after Virginia Woolf's Orlando, where the character changes sex, Paul B. Preciado asserts that the world is becoming "Orlandesque" and organizes a casting call for today's Orlandos. This film project explores the transformation of the world in a poetic and political way. 

SYNOPSIS

In 1928, Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando, a biography, the first novel in which the main character changes sex in mid-story. A century later, Paul B. Preciado, a writer and transgender activist, sends a filmed letter to the English writer Virginia Woolf, telling her that her Orlando has stepped out of her fiction and is living a life she could never have imagined. Preciado holds a casting call and gathers 26 contemporary trans and non-binary people, aged 8 to 70, to play Orlando.
"Dear Virginia Woolf, I'm writing to you because I wanted to tell you the story of my life as a non-binary trans person. The problem (or luck) is that you beat me to writing my biography by publishing Orlando a hundred years ago." (Paul B. Preciado)

Theme(s): , Identity, LGBTQI2SA+, Portrait, Social struggle, Sociology

DETAILS

Director | , Paul B. Preciado
Year | , 2023
Country | , France
Duration | 99 minutes
Original language | , English, French
Subtitles | , French
Image | Victor Zébo
Sound | Arno Ledoux, Olivier Goinard
Editing | Yotam Ben-David
Production | Annie Dekel-Ohayon, Yaël Fogiel
Distribution | Camille Jacques

DIRECTOR

Photo

Paul B. Preciado

SEE COMPLETE PROFILE

Paul B. Preciado is a writer, philosopher, curator and one of the leading thinkers in the study of gender and body politics. Among his various assignments, he was curator of public programs at documenta 14 (Kassel/Athens), curator of the Taiwan Pavilion at Venice 2019 and head of research at Barcelona's Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA).
His books, Manifeste Contra-Sexuel (Columbia University Press); Testo Junkie (The Feminist Press); Pornotopie (Zone Books); Un appartement sur Uranus (Semiotexte and Fitzcarraldo), Je suis un monstre qui vous parle (Semiotexte and Fitzcarraldo), and Dysphoria Mundi (Grasset, Graywolf and Fitzcarraldo) are a key reference for contemporary art and queer, trans and non-binary activism. He was born in Spain and lives in Paris.

CAREER

Berlinale • Visions du réel • Cinéma du réel • International Documentary Festival Amsterdam - IDFA • Toronto International Film Festival - TIFF • Festival du nouveau cinéma - FNC

PAST SCREENINGS

SCREENING 1

2 July 2024 at 21h15

Parc Médéric-Martin

A discussion with Alice Bédard, filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist, will follow the screening.

In collaboration with:
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