TSPDT

"Sally Potter's career so far exemplifies the best and the worst features of British film culture: the best in its imaginativeness, inventiveness, and biting integrity; the worst in the extreme parsimony, both financial and critical, in which it existed… As the language of commercial cinema becomes more homogenous across the world, films that keep alive other ways of representation and response become increasingly valuable, and indeed necessary. Potter's work so far does so with considerable wit and aplomb." - Verina Glaessner (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)

"British director Sally Potter is possessed of a distinct, independent vision. From the early 1970s to the present she has kept her radical edge, beginning with avant-garde short films before moving on to experimental dramatic features that incorporate music, literature, dance, theater, and performance. Potter, who typically works on multiple elements of her films, from script and direction to sound design, editing, performance, and production, elegantly blends poetry and politics, giving voice to women’s stories and romantic liaisons, and exploring themes of desire and passion, self-expression, and the role of the individual in society." - The Museum of Modern Art, 2010

"Experimental, intellectual, formally challenging and politically correct, Sally Potter's films are an antidote to what she calls the "crawling realism" of British cinema. Leaving school at 16 to make films, Potter, ever the polymath, went on to become a dancer, performance artist and composer before returning to cinema at the end of the 1970s. Her breakthrough, Orlando (1992), took seven years from script to screen, receiving spiritual guidance and moral support from her heroes Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in the drawn-out process." - Lloyd Hughes (The Rough Guide to Film, 2007)

"While many artists might believe in art’s change-inducing capacities, Potter’s fervour combines with her accomplishments to establish her stronghold within the cinematic canon. Through sophisticated film style, Potter explores the capacity of aesthetic and human intimacy to transcend categories (of gender, sexuality, religion, culture, politics, etc.) that both limit and define experience." - Kristi McKim (Senses of Cinema, 2006)

"With her work to date, Potter has established herself at the forefront of contemporary British art cinema." - Robert Shail (British Film Directors, 2007)

"Potter has become Britain’s most prolific woman writer-director, garlanded with dozens of international awards. And she’s done so by following the roads not taken by others: while making films with A-list actors such as Cate Blanchett and David Oyelowo, she has remained entirely independent. Her narrative feature films retain the experimental sensibility that informed Thriller’s feminist shake-up of La Bohème, wrapping stories that are emotionally and politically intelligent in spare, luminous aesthetics designed to touch the viewer." - So Mayer (BFI, 2020)

"I haven't made anything like the quantity of films I feel I've been capable of. This is not unique to me, as a female director: the so-called glass ceiling has, along the way, felt more like cast-iron. A lot of the films I've made have been risk-taking, and it's a very, very risk-averse culture. Is the industry more worried about female directors taking risks compared to men? Well, the statistics do rather speak for themselves." - Sally Potter (The Guardian, 2014)