Orlando, My Political Biography

Q&A with Paul B. Preciado on Oct. 3 & 4

Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando is both historical anchor and hopeful North Star of writer and philosopher Paul B. Preciado’s first film, a sweeping yet intimate documentary that takes a panoramic look at past and present trans lives. Preciado’s literate, charming conceptual approach casts 26 trans and non-binary people as different versions and evocations of Woolf’s famous gender nonconformist, using the book as a starting point to talk about both the social and metaphorical meanings of transness and how Woolf’s reflections on the body untethered from both time and gender normativity remain radical. Fleet and visually inventive, Preciado’s film is finally a robust polemical inquiry into contemporary trans personhood and political disenfranchisement that points the way toward a possible utopia. Winner of four prizes at the Berlin International Film Festival, including the Teddy Award. A Sideshow/Janus Films release.

All NYFF61 feature documentaries are presented by:

Recommended Film Comment reading:

• Berlinale Dispatch: Minor Choruses, Major Films
• The Film Comment Podcast: Orlando, My Political Biography (Berlinale 2023)

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