Freak Orlando

Directed by Ulrike Ottinger

Virginia Woolf meets the German camp underground in this extravaganza of performance art and oddity.
– Jonathan Rosenbaum

A lost movie that lives up to its hype…a fever dream reimagining of Greek mythology, the Spanish Inquisition, and our modern life.
– Shock Cinema

In this surreal masterpiece by transgressive feminist filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger, Freak Orlando navigates a gender-bending, shape-shifting history of the world in five chapters.

Like the Orlando of Woolf’s novel, the androgynous Freak Orlando is not subject to time and mortality, passing from the world’s beginning to an ultramodern present, taking a trip through the absurdity, the madness, the incompetence, the cruelty, and the endless thirst for power.

Duration:
126 minutes

Languages:
German

Subtitles:
Full English

Country of origin:
West Germany

Year of production:
1981