"Orlando" is the long-awaited Sally Potter adaptation of Virginia Woolf' s classic novel of shifting sexual identities. It is the story of a journey through time, of a man who lives for 400 years and then becomes a woman. Crossing vast tracts of history, Orlando travels as a young nobleman from the court of Elizabeth I, across the glittering ice of the frozen Thames in 1610, to the deserts of central Asia. There, in the midst of war, he changes sex. As a woman, Orlando returns to the formal salons of 18th-century London, where she faces a choice: either to marry or to lose everything. In the Victorian age, a time of wildness and repression, she sacrifices both love and inheritance. Finally she emerges into the present as an ordinary individual who in losing everything has gained herself. This epic tale, which challenges expectations of gender throughout the history of modern western culture, brings director Sally Potter's talents into their fullest flower. Always involved with the sweep and spectacle of cinema, she has been adept at orchestrating setting, gesture, costume and tableau to produce images which resonate with multi-layered significance and intelligence. She is more than assisted by the superb cast, which includes the luminously porcelain-skinned Tilda Swinton (last seen here in Derek Jarman's "Edward II" and Cynthia Beate's "The Party"), along with Lothaire Bluteau ("Jesus of Montreal") and Quentin Crisp ("The Naked Civil Servant"). Shot partly on location in Russia, with not only the magnificent landscape but thousands of extras at her command, Orlando is Sally Potter's most sumptuous and satisfying film to date.

FESTIVAL PROGRAMMING HISTORY

1992 - 17th Festival of Festivals

Contemporary World Cinema

TIFF CINEMATHEQUE PROGRAMMING HISTORY

1993 WinterTilda!

TIFF YEAR-ROUND PROGRAMMING HISTORY

SUBJECTS

RELATED RECORDS

FRL-14013 video