Taking inspiration from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, writer and theorist Paul B. Preciado uses the nearly 100 year-old novel as a framework to investigate the very real contemporary struggles of trans and non-binary people. Orlando, My Political Biography blurs the borders between fiction and documentary, addressing issues of gender dysphoria, gender affirming surgery, the political construct of gender in society, and the bureaucracy that surrounds legal gender markers. Exuberant, joyful, and deeply thoughtful, this poetic cinematic essay is visually striking, thought-provoking, rooted in diverse trans and gender non-binary voices ranging from ages 8 to 70. The powerful and lively assemblage of 26 Orlandos gives voice to a community that has battled with government, medicine, society, and perceptions to freely live their own lives. This French documentary is a playful, deeply felt, original work of art; critic B Ruby Rich went so far as to call it “the first trans masterpiece.” Winner of the Teddy Award and Encounters Jury Prize at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival.
Special Jury Award, Teddy Award for Best Documentary, Berlin 2023
Community Partner
Oscar-Roza Miller, Janis Sahraoui, Liz Christin, Elios Levy, Victor Marzouk
France
2023
Spectrum
In French with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Annie Ohayon
Producer
Yaël Fogiel, Laetitia Gonzalez, Annie Ohayon-Dekel, Farid Rezkhallah
Screenwriter
Paul B. Preciado
Cinematography
Victor Zebo
Editor
Yotam Ben David
Original Music
Clara Deshayes
Director
Paul B. Preciado
Paul B. Preciado is a writer, philosopher, curator, and one of the leading thinkers in the study of gender and body politics. Preciado is the author of six novels, including ‘Pornotopia’ which won the Prix Sade in France. Orlando, My Political Biography (2023) is his directorial debut. The film was screened at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival in 2023, and won a special Jury prize. He was born in Spain and lives in Paris.
Filmography: Orlando, My Political Biography (2023)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Tokyo Godfathers
Shinjuku, Tokyo, Christmas Eve. Middle-aged has-been Gin, aging drag artist Hana, and teenage runaway Miyuki are three homeless friends who stumble across an abandoned baby and do their best to care for the infant over the course of a long and perilous night.
Auction
Inspired by a true story, writer-director Pascal Bonitzer has crafted an inquiring, witty drama about the art market. When a long-lost Egon Schiele masterpiece reemerges, art appraiser Alex is initially skeptical. And yet...
The Librarians
Dispatches from the front line of America's culture wars (and ours too): librarians speak out about the war against ideas, history, freedom of expression and sexual identity, a campaign in which an open mind is the ultimate enemy.
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
Sinners
This year's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.