‘The teachers would refer to boys, girls – and you’: trans philosopher Paul B Preciado on reinventing Orlando

He was mentored by Jacques Derrida, amd his memoir about taking hormones broke new ground. Now, Preciado's radical cinematic riff on Virginia Woolf's novel explores a life spent defying the gender binary

In the opening seconds of Orlando: My Political Biography, a shadowy figure in a quiet city street says: Someone once asked me, Why don't you write your autobiography?' And I replied, Because Virginia Woolf fucking wrote it for me in 1928.'" The scene takes place in the dead of night, with the silence broken only by the swish of a brush as this speaker pastes up a large gold poster. Orlando," it reads, ou es tu?"

Moments later, this fly-poster apologises to Woolf for his profanity: I say it with tenderness and admiration, because your writing seems impossible to surpass. But I also say it with rage, because you represented us - trans people - as aristocrats in colonial England who one day wake up in a woman's body."