Whitby Film Society

presents

A Fantastic Woman

Chile Director: Sebastian Lello

Marina is a young transgender woman in Santiago; she is a waitress and club singer  and is in a very happy relationship with an older man. Orlando is  in his 50s, handsome, divorced with a grown-up son. In the middle of the night, after a sumptuous romantic meal, Orlando wakes up next to Marina feeling desperately ill and disoriented. Poor panicky Marina prepares to drive him to hospital but leaves him alone outside on the landing of his apartment building while she flusters about getting her things. He dazedly staggers forward and falls down the stairwell, fatally worsening the situation while sustaining bruises that mean the police need to get involved. At a single stroke, Marina’s whole existence is pathologised and criminalised—her   very  existence is on trial. “This is a brilliant film, a richly humane, moving study of someone keeping alive the memory and the fact of love.”