Orlando, my political biography

Paul B. Preciado’s film “Orlando, my political biography” is an adaptation of one of English writer Virginia Woolf’s most famous works, “Orlando”, in which the director addresses a letter to the writer saying that her character Orlando has become real. Paul B. Preciado cast 25 different people, all trans and non-binary, from 8 to 70 years old, to play Virginia Woolf’s fictional character, while narrating and questioning their own lives: “who are the contemporary Orlandos?”. The film also brings together a series of archival images of trans people from the mid-20th century who invoke the real historical Orlandos in their struggle for recognition and visibility.

Virginia Woolf wrote “Orlando” in 1928 and it was the first novel in which the main character changes sex in the middle of the story. A century later, trans writer and activist Paul B. Preciado decides to send a film letter to Virginia Woolf: her Orlando has stepped out of her fiction and is living a life she could never have imagined.

First film by Paul B. Preciado, premiered this year at the Berlinale and winner of the Teddy Award for Best Documentary, “Orlando, my political biography” arrives in national cinemas in October, with a preview within the scope of BoCA, in partnership with Nitrato Filmes.