Ackland Film Forum Watch Party and Panel for “A Fantastic Woman”

Join us for the final film in the Ackland Film Forum’s Global Queer Cinema Series, A Fantastic Woman (Sebastian Lelio, 2017, Chile). The series is a collaboration with the Film Studies Program in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill, and features a selection of four international films presented in connection with the Ackland’s Close Looks digital initiative. View the selected films on your own or join us for a watch party. Watch parties will be followed by a live post-film panel discussion with scholars from around the globe.

A Fantastic Woman will be available to stream April 23-29, 2021 with a virtual watch party on Tuesday, April 27 at 7:30 p.m. followed by a live panel discussion at 9:30 p.m. We are excited to welcome Dr. Javier García Léon (UNC-Greensboro) for our post-film panel, who will be in conversation with Martin L. Johnson (UNC-Chapel Hill). Register for free tickets below to receive a link to stream the film and a link to attend the panel via Zoom on April 27.

About A Fantastic Woman:

Marina and Orlando are in love and planning for the future. Marina is a young waitress and aspiring singer. Orlando is 20 years older than her, and owns a printing company. After celebrating Marina’s birthday one evening, Orlando falls seriously ill. Marina rushes him to the emergency room, but he passes away just after arriving at the hospital. Instead of being able to mourn her lover, suddenly Marina is treated with suspicion. The doctors and Orlando’s family don’t trust her. A woman detective investigates Marina to see if she was involved in his death. Orlando’s ex-wife forbids her from attending the funeral. And to make matters worse, Orlando’s son threatens to throw Marina out of the flat she shared with Orlando. Marina is a trans woman and for most of Orlando’s family, her sexual identity is an aberration, a perversion. So Marina struggles for the right to be herself. She battles the very same forces that she has spent a lifetime fighting just to become the woman she is now – a complex, strong, forthright and fantastic woman.