Premiere Run • Fri, Dec 8 – Thu, Dec 14

“Come, come! I’m sick to death of this particular self. I want another.” Taking Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando: A Biography as its starting point, academic virtuoso turned filmmaker Paul B. Preciado has fashioned the documentary, ORLANDO: MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY, as a personal essay, historical analysis, and social manifesto which premiered and took home four prizes at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival. For almost a century, Woolf’s eponymous hero/heroine has inspired readers for their gender fluidity across physical and spiritual metamorphoses over a 300-year lifetime. Preciado casts a diverse cross-section of more than twenty trans and non-binary individuals who interpret the role of Orlando as they perform scenes from the novel, weaving their own stories of identity and transition into Woolf’s narrative. Not content to simply update a seminal work, Preciado interrogates the relevance of Orlando in the continuing struggle against anti-trans ideologies and in the fight for global trans rights. – adapted from notes by Janus Films

“[Preciado’s] often playful approach to the material means there’s rarely a dull moment… Playful but challenging, moving and meticulous.” – Amber Wilkinson, Screen Daily