It is now exactly 30 years since the release of director Sally Potter’s film Orlando, a film that it is seen retrospectively as genderqueer. A period fantasy drama loosely based on Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography.

The androgynous Orlando is played by Tilda Swinton, traversing through time ageless and immortal.

Orlando’s transition from man to woman has been heralded by some as a trans story. But is it as simple as declaring the film and its source book as that, at a time when the word transexual didn’t exist? However both artistic forms do question the social-political comparisons of being a man and woman and we do witness the transition from one to the other.

On this episode we speak with film critic James Luxford about the genderqueer/ trans themes Orlando put's forward.

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Music: Avant Garde by @tinymusic_aka_florianseraul

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