Orlando, My Political Biography review: Real heart on show in joyful trans essay

As a loose dramatic platform, the Spaniard makes great use of Virginia Woolf’s famous 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography, in which a poet and nobleman awakes one day to find himself transformed into a woman.

Through interviews and short fancy-dress scenes, voice is given to the hopes, fears, journeys and experiences of 26 individuals who, like the filmmaker, all hail from trans and non-binary backgrounds. The boundary between arch, scripted moments and real-life confession becomes permeable.

On paper, the entire premise might sound slightly overwrought and self-righteous, but Preciado achieves something quite special. Not only is this film full of joy and levity, it’s at once able to laugh at itself while untangling and humanising a topic that is too dauntingly political for many of us looking in from the outside. Before any message or metatextual shenanigans, there is real heart on show here.

Four stars