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Orlando - or a Little History of the Middle Class

director: Jelena Jeremejewa, Catalina Flórez

original title: Orlando oder eine kurze Geschichte der Mittelklasse

country: Germany

year: 2023

running time: 42 min.

synopsis

The protagonist of Virginia Woolf's Orlando was born a man. But, after thirty years of life, he wakes up as a woman and his previous perspective changes radically. Similarly, this personal film essay changes the perspective from which a middle-class story is usually presented. When you are neither rich nor poor, you struggle with the problem of identity all your life. All the more so if you are also a woman struggling for your rights, education and financial independence. Inspired by Daniela Dröscher's text, the film is not only about growing up in West Germany, but more generally about the difficulties of social mobility for those who are not heterosexual men.

“It took a long time for me to realise that I'm from a lower-middle class family, from the petit bourgeois. For some time, I didn't know what to call my social position.”

biography

Jelena Jeremejewa is a German media artist, writer and documentary filmmaker. She focuses on issues of systemic injustice in education, unequal opportunities for women and young people, and the immigrant experience. She teaches documentary filmmaking at the Universities of Weimar and Darmstadt.

Catalina Flórez is a Colombian filmmaker, founder of Urua Films in Berlin, with a background in documentary and fiction. She coordinates the Into the Wild mentoring program, and also works as a documentary trainer, consultant, and juror at film events.

more about film

director:	Jelena Jeremejewa, Catalina Flórez
script:	Daniela Dröscher, Catalina Flórez, Jelena Jeremejewa

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