Documentary
Blurring the lines between reality and fiction, this fascinating film by trans writer, philosopher and activist Paul B. Preciado – a leading figure in the study of gender and body politics – is a playful, moving, metatextual documentary expanding Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando: A Biography, in which the protagonist changes gender midway through the story to become a 36-year-old woman.
A century after Woolf wrote her novel, Preciado decides to send her a cinematic letter telling her that Orlando has emerged from her fiction to live a life she could never have imagined, organising a casting that brings together 26 contemporary trans and non-binary people, aged 8 to 70, to embody the character. Reconstructing the stages of his own personal transformation through authentic voices, writings, theory and images, Preciado’s meticulous, bracingly intellectual yet highly accessible film eschews pigeonholes, inviting us to see instead how everything is constantly in flux.
