Orlando, My Political Biography
Trans | Teddy Award Winner | Documentary | Flare 2024 | Edinburgh International Film Festival 2023 | Teddy Award 2023 | 2023
Original Title
Orlando, ma biographie politique- Director: Paul B. Preciado
- Writer: Paul B. Preciado
- Producer: Yaël Fogiel, Laetitia Gonzalez, Annie Ohayon, Farid Rezkallah
CGiii Comment
You would be hard-pressed to find a film festival that hasn't screened this. And, you will be even harder-pressed to find any harsh words written about this experimental, repetitive monotony...that is, until now!
By the time the third 'Orlando' is introduced, you get the general gist of what's going to happen...or, to be more accurate...what's not going to be happening, as it is more of the same and only 17 more 'Orlando-s' to go! With this Orlando, time stands still...exasperatingly and enduringly so! 98 minutes have never felt so...eternal.
Virginia Woolf...what must you be thinking? Your masterpiece has been 're-woked' and re-worked and claimed as a theological Trans tome...rather than what it actually is...a transgressive, literary milestone.
'Let the children potter and play', she says in imagination, 'they'll soon bore and move on. I will persist.'
Exactly.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando” tells the story of a young man who grows up to become a 36-year-old woman. Almost a century after its publication, Paul B. Preciado speaks to Virginia Woolf to tell her that her fictional character has become a reality.
The transition of Orlando’s body now lies at the root of all non-binary bodies and there are Orlandos all over the world. Through the authentic voices of other young bodies undergoing metamorphosis, Preciado retraces the stages of his personal transformation through a poetic journey in which life, writing, theory and image merge freely in the search for truth.
Every Orlando, he says, is a transgender person who is risking his, her or their life on a daily basis as they find themselves forced to confront government laws, history and psychiatry, as well as traditional notions of the family and the power of multinational pharmaceutical companies. But if “male” and “female” are ultimately political and social fictions, Orlando, ma biographie politique shows us that change is no longer just about gender, but also about poetry, love and skin colour.
Cast & Characters
Amir Baylly
Jenny Bel'Air
Kori Ceballos
Liz Christin
Naëlle Dariya
Tom Dekel
Virginie Despentes
Le Filip
Pierre et Gilles
Vanasay Khamphommala
Elios Lévy
Tristana Gray Martyr
Victor Marzouk
Oscar Miller
Julia Postollec
Paul B. Preciado
Ruben Rizza
Janis Sahraoui