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Sally Potter
Charlotte Sally Potter OBE (born 19 September 1949) is an English film director and screenwriter. She directed Orlando (1992), which won the audience prize for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival.
Potter was born and raised in London. Her mother was a music teacher and her father was an interior designer and a poet. Her younger brother Nic became the bassist for the rock group Van der Graaf Generator. Speaking about how her background influenced her work as a filmmaker, she has said: "I came from an atheist background and an anarchist background, which meant that I grew up in an environment that was full of questions, where nothing could be taken for granted."
When asked about what she learned about filmmaking from pursuing it as a 17-year-old woman in the UK during the 1960s, Potter laughed.
You know, most kinds of securities are illusions, and we need to kind of duck and weave as filmmakers, go with the flow, go where the harvest is. [...] I knew very early on, if I waited for somebody to give me money to do something, I'd never do anything.
Potter began making amateur films at the age of 14, using an 8mm camera given to her by an uncle. She eventually dropped out of school at the age of 16 to pursue filmmaking. From 1968 to 1970, she worked as a kitchen worker and a picture researcher for the BBC in order to support herself and her work. She had joined the London Film-Makers' Co-op and 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. She made 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 continued as a composer when she collaborated with David Motion on the soundtrack to Orlando. She wrote the score for the 1997 film The Tango Lesson, for which she sang "I am You" in the final scene. Her most recent music work is as producer and co-composer with Fred Frith of the original tracks for Yes and Rage.
Referring to her career as a choreographer, Potter said, "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."
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Sally Potter
Charlotte Sally Potter OBE (born 19 September 1949) is an English film director and screenwriter. She directed Orlando (1992), which won the audience prize for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival.
Potter was born and raised in London. Her mother was a music teacher and her father was an interior designer and a poet. Her younger brother Nic became the bassist for the rock group Van der Graaf Generator. Speaking about how her background influenced her work as a filmmaker, she has said: "I came from an atheist background and an anarchist background, which meant that I grew up in an environment that was full of questions, where nothing could be taken for granted."
When asked about what she learned about filmmaking from pursuing it as a 17-year-old woman in the UK during the 1960s, Potter laughed.
You know, most kinds of securities are illusions, and we need to kind of duck and weave as filmmakers, go with the flow, go where the harvest is. [...] I knew very early on, if I waited for somebody to give me money to do something, I'd never do anything.
Potter began making amateur films at the age of 14, using an 8mm camera given to her by an uncle. She eventually dropped out of school at the age of 16 to pursue filmmaking. From 1968 to 1970, she worked as a kitchen worker and a picture researcher for the BBC in order to support herself and her work. She had joined the London Film-Makers' Co-op and 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. She made 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 continued as a composer when she collaborated with David Motion on the soundtrack to Orlando. She wrote the score for the 1997 film The Tango Lesson, for which she sang "I am You" in the final scene. Her most recent music work is as producer and co-composer with Fred Frith of the original tracks for Yes and Rage.
Referring to her career as a choreographer, Potter said, "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."