Film about legendary French writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 9, 2025

A documentary detailing the life of French surrealist artist, filmmaker, poet and painter Jean Cocteau is coming to the Orcas Center big screen.

“This is part of my ongoing effort to keep bringing unusual and queer context to the island,” said organizer Jared Lovejoy. “Cocteau is legendary. I saw this film at the Seattle International Film Festival and met the director and decided to bring to it Orcas and they kindly agreed.”

Weaving Cocteau’s written words and recorded observations with an archival sampling of his exhaustive output, director Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s documentary tells his fascinating story by compassionately bringing into view a life freed by artistic impulse — and an art deeply entwined with his ecstasies and struggles.

The film be shown on Friday, July 18 at 7 p.m. Tickets are at www.orcascenter.org. To view a trailer, go to https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/k9sfzb3yg1vo33fyih3cw/Jean-Cocteau-Trailer.mp4?rlkey=8rihb8wavxw9iauqhji5xs6a4&dl=0.

In the years before fame alone would be accepted as an art form, Cocteau, who died in 1963 at age 74, considered his artistic lot in life one of obscurity and celebrity. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th century and greatly influenced the surrealist and Dadaist movements. Cocteau also never hid his bisexuality, and his work — from the literary (“Les enfants terribles”) to the cinematic (“The Blood of a Poet,” “Orpheus,” “Beauty and the Beast”), features homoerotic imagery and symbolism.