Sally Potter - Career

Career

Potter began making amateur films, at age 14, with an 8mm camera that was given to her by an uncle. She eventually dropped out of school, at age 16, to pursue filmmaking. From 1968-1970 she worked as a kitchen worker and a picture researcher for BBC in order to support herself and her work, after joining the London Film-Makers' Co-op, where she began making experimental short films, including Jerk (1969) and Play (1970). She later trained as a dancer and choreographer at the London School of Contemporary Dance, making both film and dance pieces, including Combines (1972), before founding Limited Dance Company with Jacky Lansley.

Potter became an award-winning performance artist and theatre director, with shows including Mounting, Death and the Maiden and Berlin. In addition, she was a member of several music bands (including Feminist Improvising Group and The Film Music Orchestra) working as a lyricist and singer. She collaborated (as a singer-songwriter) with composer Lindsay Cooper on the song cycle Oh Moscow which was performed throughout Europe, Russia and North America in the late 1980s and commercially released. (Potter’s music work continued later when she co-composed with David Motion the soundtrack to Orlando, and produced the score for The Tango Lesson, in which she also sang "I am You" in the film's final scene. Her most recent music work is as producer and co-composer with Fred Frith of the original tracks for Yes and Rage.) When referring to her career as a choreographer, Potter stated, "Choreography was the perfect 'poor theatre.' All you needed were willing bodies and some space. So it was as a choreographer that I learnt how to direct and it was as a dancer that I learnt how to work."

Potter returned to filmmaking with her short film Thriller (1979) which was a hit on the international festival circuit. This was followed by her first feature film, The Gold Diggers (1983), starring Julie Christie; a short film, The London Story (1986); a documentary series for Channel 4, Tears, Laughter, Fear and Rage (1986); and I am an Ox, I am a Horse, I am a Man, I am a Woman (1988), a film about women in Soviet cinema.

The internationally distributed Orlando (1992) brought Potter’s work to a wider audience. Starring Tilda Swinton, the film was based on Virginia Woolf’s novel and adapted for the screen by Potter. In addition to two Academy Award nominations, Orlando won more than 25 international awards, including the Felix awarded by the European Film Academy for the best Young European Film of 1993, and first prizes at St Petersburg, Thessaloniki and other festivals. The novel, like many of those written by Woolf, was previously considered impossible to adapt for the screen, because it took place over 400 years and followed a character whose sex changes from a man to a woman; therefore, funding the feature proved difficult and Orlando took seven years to complete, despite filming and editing only taking 20 weeks. Preparation for the film, including adapting the novel, funding the film, scouting locations, etc., took four years. Orlando is often considered a feminist film; however, Potter denies that label. She stated in an interview, "I have come to the conclusion that I can't use that term in my work. Not because of a disavowal of the underlying principles that gave birth to that word – the commitment to liberation, dignity, equality. But it has become a trigger word that stops people's thinking. You literally see people's eyes glaze over with exhaustion when the word flashes into the conversation.” Instead of a purely feminine struggle, Potter claims that the story shows that it is both hard to be a man and hard to be a woman.

Her next film was The Tango Lesson (1996), in which she also performed, with renowned tango dancer Pablo Veron. First presented at the Venice Film Festival, the film was awarded the "Ombú de Oro" for Best Film at the Mar del Plata Film Festival, Argentina, the SADAIC Great Award from the Sociedad Argentina de Autores y Compositores de Música, as well as receiving Best Film nominations from BAFTA and the US National Board of Review. The Tango Lesson is semi-autobiographical, based on Potter's experiences learning Argentinian Tango Dancing with Veron while writing the screenplay for Rage. The Tango Lesson marks Potter's first time performing on screen. Regarding this decision she stated, "I knew that I had to perform in this one because the impetus for the film came out of my own desire to dance.” Potter's professional collaborations with Pablo Veron continue in The Man Who Cried and the stage production of Carmen (2007).

The Man Who Cried (starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Cate Blanchett and John Turturro), premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2000 and was followed by Yes (2004), with Joan Allen, Simon Abkarian and Sam Neill. Yes was written in direct response to the events of September 11, 2001 and is considered Potter's return to more experimental methods of filmmaking. The screenplay is written in verse and the film's budget was much smaller than that for The Man Who Cried. Regarding the film's budget and stylistic approaches, Potter has stated, "Originally I was trying to figure out how we could shoot this film without any lights, because there didn't seem to be enough money in the budget to have any. One solution was to shoot at six frames a second, or even three. Later you print each frame four (or eight) times to bring it into sync at twenty-four frames per second. You can shoot almost in the dark, and still see people's faces...we did some tests and found that it was very beautiful; so I decided to make it part of the language of the film."

In 2007 Potter directed Bizet’s Carmen for English National Opera at the London Coliseum, starring Alice Coote and designed by Es Devlin.

Rage (2009) was the first feature ever to premiere on cell-phones. The cast includes Judi Dench, Steve Buscemi, Lily Cole and Jude Law. Rage was in competition at the Berlin Film Festival in 2009 and nominated for a WEBBY for Best Drama in 2010.

Potter recently finished production on her next feature. It is written and directed by Potter and produced by Christoper Sheppard and Andrew Lityin.

Sally Potter had full career retrospectives of her film and video work at the BFI Southbank, London, and Filmoteca, Madrid, in 2009, and MoMA, New York, in 2010. She has a blog and message board at www.sallypotter.com.

Potter was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to film.