Orlando

Cast: Tilda Swinton, Billy Zane, Lothaire Bluteau, John Wood, Charlotte Valandrey, Quentin Crisp

The English aristocrat, poet and favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, receives an unusual order from the monarchine: never grow old. Thus begins Orlando's (Tilda Swinton) four-century journey through courtly intrigue, diplomatic expeditions, literary salons and wars—a journey in which the protagonist wakes up one morning as a woman without asking why, and lives on, loved and betrayed, fighting for the right to her own property in a world that denies women it.

Sally Potter, a director with a background in British experimental cinema, has made an adaptation that for decades has been considered unfilmable — keeping an ironic distance from Woolf's prose thanks to the protagonist's distinctive, direct looks into the camera. Alexei Rodionov's painterly photographs, the splendour of Sandy Powell's costumes (her first Oscar nomination) and music co-created by Potter herself build a world where form is as important as content: costume, architecture and light become the language of the story, not just its background.

The cast, alongside Swinton, included Billy Zane, Quentin Crisp (Elizabeth I) and Charlotte Valandrey. The film won two BAFTA awards, two Oscar nominations and an audience award at the Venice Film Festival, making it a permanent fixture in the canon of queer cinema and the history of British female directing.