by Jelena Jeremejewa & Catalina Flórez / 42 min. / archival material, Documentary / 2023 / Germany.

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 realize 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.”

Credits