Every month at the Paradise Theatre, curator and host Peter Knegt is offering queers (and anyone who loves them) a classic queer film, special guests and performers, and then — after the show — some good old fashioned drinks and conversation in the Paradise’s stunning lobby bar. Each film will be paired with a different local queer artist, who will design an original poster for the screening.

For November, we’ll time travel between centuries and across genders with none other than Tilda Swinton as our guide with Sally Potter’s ravishing (and quite loose) adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando. The film begins shortly before the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, with the queen (played by Quentin Crisp, no less) promising androgynous young nobleman Orlando (Swinton) a large tract of land if he assents to her command: “Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old.” This begins a journey where Orlando will live for hundreds of years, both as a man and as a woman. 

30 years after it first screened in cinemas, Orlando remains an astonishing meeting of three singular artistic minds: Virginia Woolf, Sally Potter and Tilda Swinton. Their collective gifts offer us a film that is so dazzling and sexy, so witty and elegant… that you don’t quite realize how much it’s saying about human existence (particularly queer human existence) until you’re walking out of the cinema. What more could you ask from a mid-November night?

The event's downright regal poster -- which will be available for sale at the screening - was created by incredibly talented artist Anna Campbell.