Adapted from Virginia Woolf's inspired 1928 satire Orlando: A Biography, screenwriter-director Sally Potter's trailblazing fictional biopic stars Tilda Swinton in the role she was born to play: an Elizabethan poet and nobleman who, over a centuries-long existence, encounters important historical figures, inexplicably switches genders and ends up giving birth to a daughter. 

A triumph of dogged persistence and self-belief at a time when even fewer women directed movies, the script for Orlando was rejected by several studios, forcing Potter - a creative powerhouse whose career to that point had incorporated dance, choreography, songwriting and composition, performance art, theatre, documentary, television drama and a single feature film, 1983's The Gold Diggers with Julie Christie - to secure financing for the film herself. 

Incorporating poetry by Spencer and Shelley, songs by Jimmy Somerville and readings from the Koran and featuring supporting performances from Quentin Crisp (as Elizabeth I!), Simon Russell Beale and stud-of-the-hour Billy Zane, Orlando manages to be simultaneously stately, absurd, emotional, grandiose,wickedly intelligent and always hugely entertaining. 

We're thrilled to announce that the film will be followed by a Q&A with writer, director and Rio Cinema patron Sally Potter herself, to be hosted by curator and author of many books including The Cinema of Sally Potter, So Mayer.