Freak Orlando

Cross-breeding time-skipping fantasy with outrageous masquerade, Ottinger’s five garishly costumed tales recount a history of the world involving the Spanish Inquisition, traveling entertainers, Greek mythology, assorted bodily oddities, and general carnivalesque intrigue. The formidable Magdalena Montezuma stars as the intrepid traveler in all the shapeshifting and gender-bending tales. Reworking Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Tod Browning’s Freaks, feminist pioneer Ottinger invents a colorful, boundary-busting theater of human difference and transformation. This very rarely screened film also features Delphine Seyrig, Eddie Constantine, and Jackie Raynal.

“Virginia Woolf meets the German camp underground in this extravaganza of performance art and oddity by Ottinger.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum

“A lost movie that lives up to its hype. . . A fever dream reimagining of Greek mythology, The Spanish Inquisition, and our modern life . . . which resembles The Howard Stern Show by way of Ken Russell.” —Shock Cinema