ORLANDO: MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY
The screening will take place on 5 October at 8:30 p.m. at the Skalvija Cinema Centre.
France, 2023, 98 min, French, with subtitles in English and Lithuanian
Director: Paul B. Preciado
Screenwriter: Paul B. Preciado
DOP: Victor Zebo
Editor: Yotam Ben David
Composer: Clara Deshayes
Sound design: Olivier Goinard
Sound: Arno Ledoux
Make-up artists: Elsa Gendre, Océane Lathuillière
Costume design: Thomas Goudou, Caroline Spieth
Casting: Naelle Dariya
Assistant directors: Julie Gouet, Anais Couette, Ugo Moulet, Anna Cohen-Yanai
Producers: Yaël Fogiel, Laetitia Gonzalez, Annie Ohayon-Dekel, Farid Rezkhallah
Orlando played by: Oscar-Roza Miller, Janis Sahraoui, Liz Christin, Elios Levy, Victor Marzouk, Paul B. Preciado, Kori Ceballos, Vanasay Khamphommala, Ruben Rizza, Julia Postollec, Amir Baylly, Naëlle Dariya, Jenny Bel’Air, Emma Avena, Lillie, Arthur, Eleonore, La Bourette, Noam Iroual, Iris Crosnier, Clara Deshayes.
Other cast: Castiel Emery (Sasha), Fréderic Pierrot (Psychiatrist), Nathan Callot ( Armory Salesman), Pierre ir Gilles ( Doctors), Tristana Gray Martyr (Goddess of Hormones), Le Filip ( Goddess of Gender Fucking), Miss Drinks ( Goddess of Insurrection), Tom Dekel ( Receptionist), Virginie Despentes (Judge), Rilke & Pompom (Orlando’s Dogs).
In 1928, Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando, 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 come out of her fiction and is living a life she could have never imagined. Preciado organises a casting and gathers 26 contemporary trans and non-binary people, from 8 to 70 years old, who embody Orlando.
As a response and addition to this year's programme of the Sirenos Club, the film distribution company Taip Toliau proposed a film that has gained international acclaim but has so far bypassed Lithuania – Paul B. Preciado's Orlando(s): My Political Biography. Better known as a researcher of body politics and gender studies, as well as a writer, philosopher and curator, Preciado was invited to make a film about his gender transition. The result is a cinematic letter to Virginia Woolf, announcing that the character in her novel Orlando, who changes gender in the middle of the story, has now become a reality. Orlando(s): My Political Biography is a biographical essay and social manifesto of unexpected aesthetics and radical performativity, which argues that Orlando’s bodily transformation has today become the basis for all non-binary bodies. A polyphonic chorus of bodies undergoing metamorphosis proudly proclaims that today there are countless Orlandos living all over the world. The film was included in the cinema programme of the Avignon Theatre Festival.
The writer, philosopher and curator Paul B. Preciado was born in Spain and lives in Paris. Considered one of the leading figures in the study of gender and body politics, his work includes the role of curator at documenta 14 and at the Taiwanese Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. His books – which include “Countersexual Manifesto” and “Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era” – are key reference works in queer, trans and non-binary contemporary art and activism.
Photo by Marie Rouge
