Sally went on to become an award-winning performance artist and theatre director with a reputation for work that managed to be innovative, challenging and entertaining. For the theatre, she created solo shows as well as large-scale theatrical performances (for example, Mounting; Death And The Maiden; and Berlin; all collaborations with Rose English). In addition, she is an experienced lyricist and singer, performing in various improvised music bands and collaborating with composer Lindsay Cooper on the song cycle Oh Moscow--which she performed throughout Europe and North America--and co-composing with David Motion the soundtrack to Orlando.

Sally's short film Thriller (1979), a critical re-working of Puccini's opera "La Boheme," was a cult hit on the international festival circuit and brought her work to a wider audience. This was followed by Sally's first feature film, The Gold Diggers (1983), starring Julie Christie; and then a short film, The London Story (1986); a documentary series for channel 4, Tears, Laughter, Fears and Rage; and her film on women in Soviet Cinema, I Am An Ox, I Am A Horse, I Am A Man, I Am A Woman (1988).

The internationally acclaimed, Oscar-nominated Orlando (1992), was Sally's highest-profile film to date--starring Tilda Swinton and based on Virginia Woolf's classic novel of an Elizabethan nobleman who lives for four centuries and changes sex half way. In addition to two Academy Award nominations, Orlando has won more than 25 international awards, including the "Felix," awarded by the European Film Academy for the Best Young European Film of 1993.

After completing Orlando, Sally returned to script writing. Of the four new screenplays she has written, The Tango Lesson is the first to go into production.