Orlando, My Political Biography

Paul B. Preciado's 2023 film reworks Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando in documentary form. Woolf's book follows a young nobleman who lives across centuries and one day wakes as a woman. Almost a century later, Preciado argues that the fiction has become fact, and distributes the role of Orlando among more than twenty trans and non-binary people. Each performs scenes from the novel and at the same time recounts their own transition, their identity documents, their medical processes and the obstacles they meet. The film is neither a straight adaptation nor a conventional documentary; it builds a deliberately staged space between the two. It screened in the Encounters section at the Berlin Film Festival and took several prizes. Who it's for: viewers interested in queer theory, literary adaptation and experimental documentary. Who it's not for: anyone expecting conventional narrative or neutral observation; the film takes a side and says so.