Tilda Swinton in Sally Potter's Orlando

Dates: 2-28 December 2009 | Location: BFI, London

The director of Rage, Orlando, The Man Who Cried and various other sumptuous, starry and/or identity-centric works is receiving a BFI retrospective, with a series of screenings (including showings of lesser-known and made for TV works), talks, and other events running throughout December.

Potter and Tilda Swinton – star of Orlando, her adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel about a gender-switching, centuries-old aristocrat – will be in conversation on Wednesday 2nd, while on Friday 4th Potter will be leading a ‘how to’ film making masterclass with Shooting People. The season will also see the launch of an online archive of Potter’s  production materials, dubbed SP-ARK (geddit?), and the director will be conducting a tour of the Orlando production archive in collaboration with academics and the site’s creators on the 2nd.

The end of the season will be marked by the DVD release of The Gold Diggers, Sally Potter’s first feature film. Starring Julie Christie, set in Iceland and shot by an all-female crew, the film features many of the themes and motifs for which Potter would become known, and extras on the DVD release include a selection of her short films.

For tickets and full details, check the BFI website.