Dorrie had made documentaries and a fine medium-length fiction film, "The First Waltz" (1977), before directing her first feature, the highly assured "Straight Through the Heart", in 1983. A witty psychodrama involving an insecure young woman and an equally insecure older man, it was followed two years later by the international success "Men", another--though more lighthearted--look at male-female role playing.

Dorrie's first English-language film, "Me and Him" (1988), was based on Alberto Moravia's story of a man whose penis begins talking to him; interesting but flawed, it failed to achieve theatrical release in the USA.