Sally Potter

‘John Berger has made the world a better place to live in. These essays tell us how he succeeded in that task.’Arundhati RoyIn this collection of essays on the work of, and conversations with, John Berger, thirty-seven of his friends, artistic collaborators and followers come together to form the first truly international and cross-cultural celebration of his interventions. Berger has for decades, through his poetic humanism, brought together geographically, historically and socially disparate subjects. His work continues to throw out lifelines across genres, times and types of experience, opening up radical questions about the meaning of belonging and of community. In keeping with this spirit and in celebration of Berger, the short essays in A Jar of Wild Flowers challenge us all to take the brave step from limited sympathy to extended generosity. With contributions from Ali Smith, Julie Christie, Sally Potter, Ram Rahman, Jean Mohr, Nick Thorpe, Hsiao-Hung Pai and many others.

Janet hosts an intimate gathering of friends in her London home to celebrate her political ascension. After her acerbic best friend and others arrive, some with dramatic news to share, an announcement by Janet's husband provokes a series of revelations. As the sophisticated soir e starts to unravel, a night that began with champagne soon ends with arguments, shouting, and a pointed gun.

Orlando is Sally Potter's bold, unsentimental re-working of Virginia Woolf's classic novel in which an innocent aristocrat journeys through 400 years of English history - first as a man, then as a woman. The film has won more than twenty international awards and enjoyed considerable box-office success around the world. Addressing contemporary concerns about gender and identity, the screenplay is remarkably true to the spirit of Virginia Woolf. But it also skilfully adapts the original story to give it a striking, cinematic form. How Sally Potter has achieved this is described in the book's Introduction, which outlines the process by which Woolf's novel has been transformed into Potter's film.