25th Anniversary Screening. Introduction by Sally Potter.

Twenty-five years after its premiere in the 49th Venice International Film Festival, Potter’s bold re-working of Virginia Woolf’s classic novel endures as a remarkable love story and an incisive tour through English history, while directly and deftly addressing modern concerns of gender and identity. Shortly before the death of Elizabeth I, an innocent aristocrat, Orlando (Tilda Swinton, in a profoundly subtle performance), is promised a generous fortune by the Queen provided that he “not grow old.” He then goes on to live for centuries, first as a man, and then as a woman.