[7] Her younger brother Nic became the bassist for the rock group Van der Graaf Generator.

She had joined the London Film-Makers' Co-op and began making experimental short films, including Jerk (1969) and Play (1970).

Potter became an award-winning performance artist and theatre director, with shows including Mounting, Death and the Maiden and Berlin.

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.

The novel had previously been considered impossible to adapt for the screen, because it took place over 400 years and followed a character whose sex changes from a man to a woman.

"[12] Potter's professional collaborations with Pablo Veron continue in The Man Who Cried and the stage production of Carmen (2007).

"[14] The Man Who Cried (starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Cate Blanchett and John Turturro), premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2000.

Ricci plays a Jewish girl who, separated from her father when she was young in Soviet Russia, travels to America to find him.

Yes was written in response to the attacks in the United States of 11 September 2001; it is considered Potter's return to more experimental methods of filmmaking.

You can shoot almost in the dark, and still see people's faces ... we did some tests and found that it was very beautiful; so I decided to make it part of the language of the film.

[16][citation needed]In 2007 Potter directed Georges Bizet's Carmen for English National Opera at the London Coliseum, starring Alice Coote and designed by Es Devlin.

[19][20] The film features a star-studded ensemble cast with Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Emily Mortimer, Cherry Jones, Cillian Murphy, Kristin Scott Thomas and Timothy Spall.

In 2020, Potter's drama The Roads Not Taken was released after a world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Golden Bear.

It follows Molly (Elle Fanning) caring for her father, Leo (Javier Bardem), who suffers from early-onset dementia.