FIPRESCI 93 Premium Award to Sally Potter

Sally Potter, the British film director and screenwriter, will be honored with the special FIPRESCI 93 Premium Award”.

Since making her first 8mm film at the age of 14, she has written and directed several feature films, as well as many short films, a television series, and even directed an opera. She debuted with an experimental drama “The Gold Diggers” (1983), and then directed “Orlando” (1992), the bold adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s classic novel, which won numerous awards and brought Potter’s work to a wide international audience. It was followed by “The Tango Lesson” (1996), “The Man Who Cried” (2000), “Yes” (2004), “Rage” (2009), “Ginger and Rosa” (2012) and “The Party” (2017).

Sally Potter is one of the most exceptional contemporary female film directors. Formally flexible, intellectually rich and emotionally astute, her cinema works consistently to expand and adapt the film medium, and to make its viewers “part of the transformation.”

Sally Potter will receive the “FIPRESCI 93 Premium Award” during the Transtlantyk Film Festival in the Polish city of Lodz, in mid-July. The festival is headed by a composer, Oscar-winner Jan A.P. Kaczmarek. The festival will present five of Sally Potter’s films. She will also give a masterclass.

Three years ago FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics, celebrated its ninetieth anniversary. On this occasion several renowned film directors accepted the special FIPRESCI 90+ Premium Award” (during BiFest, the Bari International Film Festival in Bari, Italy), Now, approaching the hundredth anniversary of the organization, we honor outstanding artists of cinema every year. So far the laureates are: Alan Parker, Andrzej Wajda, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Nanni Moretti, Margarethe von Trotta, Edgar Reitz, Costa Gavras, Ettore Scola, Béla Tarr, Goran Paskaljevic, Ildikó Enyedi, Lucrecia Martel. (Barbara Hollender)