“Come, come! I’m sick to death of this particular self. I want another.” Taking Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando: A Biography” as his starting point, academic virtuoso turned filmmaker Paul B. Preciado fashioned the documentary ORLANDO, MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY—a personal essay, historical analysis, and social manifesto. For almost a century, Woolf’s eponymous hero(ine) has inspired readers with their gender fluidity as well as their physical and spiritual metamorphoses across a three-hundred-year span. In making his film, Preciado invited a diverse group of more than twenty trans and nonbinary people to play the role of Orlando and to participate in this shared biography. Together, they perform interpretations of the novel, weaving into Woolf’s narrative their own stories of transition and identity formation. Not content to simply update a groundbreaking work, Preciado interrogates the relevance of “Orlando” in the ongoing struggle to secure dignity for trans people worldwide.

Join us in the DSI Lab (G325 Mason Hall) or virtually via Zoom to discuss the 2023 documentary, “Orlando: My Political Biography,” with the filmmaker, Paul B. Preciado.

Email Atticus Spicer (ospicer@umich.edu) to RSVP!

Watch the film trailer.

Come in-person for a copy of our zine/program from the screening hosted by Search Engines in September!