Paris-based sales company The Party has acquired world rights for Paul B. Preciado’s Orlando, My Political Biography ahead of its world premiere in Berlin’s Encounters selection, and has unveiled the first trailer (watch above).

Writer, philosopher and curator Preciado’s film blurs the lines between reality and fiction with a personal interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando: A Biography a century after its publication. The director concludes that the book’s character has become real, and that the world is becoming increasingly Orlando-esque. He held a viral street casting online to find “contemporary Orlandos” and filmed the journey for his first feature.

Orlando, My Political Biography is produced by Les Films du Poisson’s Yaël Fogiel and Laetitia Gonzalez and co-produced by 24images’ Annie Ohayon and Farid Rezkallah and Arte. Fogiel describes the film as a “fictional documentary”.

The Party will kick off sales for the title at the EFM. The company’s co-heads of sales Clémence Lavigne and Samuel Blanc said the film is “so many things at the same time: a poetical, political, intimate and collective, visionary and accessible exploration of the deconstruction of genre. It unveils through a creative mise-en-scene the “Orlandisation” of our world, how to reappropriate the Living, and will attract a lot of attention beyond activist circles.”

At the EFM, The Party will also market premiere Veerle Baetens’ When It Melts, whose star Rosa Marchant just won the special jury award for best performance in Sundance’s World Dramatic Competition and is making its European debut this week at the Göteborg Film Festival. The Party will also continue sales for Pascal Plisson’s documentary Happy! launched at Unifrance’s January Paris Rendez-Vous.

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