A Fantastic Woman at HOME
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
Chilean director Sebastián Lelio follows up his acclaimed 2013 film Gloria with A Fantastic Woman. Billed as a life-affirming story about a trans woman’s fight for acceptance, the film stars Daniela Vega as Marina Vidal, a young singer whose life is thrown into turmoil turmoil following the sudden death of her partner, Orlando. Left with no legal claim to his estate – including the home they shared – Vidal is banned from the funeral and placed under heavy scrutiny by the police and Orlando’s famiIy. She risks losing everything and must find the strength to fight back in the face of overwhelming bigotry. Both Lelio and Vega have earned rave reviews for their work and A Fantastic Woman has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The film arrives in Manchester accompanied by a series of special events spread across the city that open up conversations around trans visibility, representation and rights – and celebrate fantastic trans women. HOME will host an after work pop-up cabaret featuring trans performance artist Kate O’Donnell (Monday 26th February in the café bar), whilst to mark the launch of the film, Tribeca in The Village presents A Fantastic Party (Friday 2nd March) featuring an all trans female line-up of DJs including Grace Oni Smith and Marilyn Misandry.
There will be a screening of A Fantastic Woman on Sunday 4th March at 17.45 at HOME which will be followed by a panel discussion about trans visibility in real life and on film – the panel will be chaired by trans comedian Shon Faye and will feature Kate O Donnel, Grace Oni Smith, The LGBT Foundation’s Aimee Linfield and poet AJ McKenna (who will also perform her poetry before the film.) Fans can then head over to Texture to see how the film gets on at the Oscars with “big gay film club” Make A Scene’s live party.
