Sexy, camp, and provocative, Sally Potter’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography follows a naive aristocrat’s journey through 400 years of British history, first as a man and then as a woman. Beginning in the Elizabethan era, Tilda Swinton stars as the ravishing Orlando, the boyish heir to a noble title who receives wealth and lands from Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp) on the condition that he does not age. After suffering heartbreak from a Russian princess, Orlando curses all women, only to discover he has transformed into one.

A witty satire of British culture and its patriarchal traditions of empire, inheritance, property, and marriage, Orlando is regarded as a milestone achievement in queer and feminist film studies. It won multiple awards at the 1992 Venice Film Festival and marked a breakout role for Swinton, establishing her as an actress unafraid to tackle offbeat and unconventional characters. In this role, Swinton embodies Woolf’s feisty interrogation of gender, positioning herself as a fierce and versatile talent in cinema and paving the way for future roles that similarly challenge rigid societal norms.

M+ Cinema will present a 4K restoration of this film.

Sally Potter (b. 1949, United Kingdom) is a director, screenwriter, and composer who left school at 16 to pursue a career in experimental filmmaking. A member of the London Film-Makers’ Co-op, she also trained as a dancer and choreographer. Potter’s diverse body of work includes acclaimed films such as The Tango Lesson (1997), Ginger & Rosa (2012), and The Party (2017). Her films have been celebrated in career retrospectives at the British Film Institute in London (2009) and the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2010), as well as Filmoteca de Catalunya in Barcelona (2021). She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2012 in recognition of her contributions to film.