Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini was BOTD in 1920. Born in Rimini, he moved to Rome with his family in the 1930s, where he began writing scripts for radio serials. In 1944, he worked as a scriptwriter for Roberto Rossellini’s film Roma, città aperta (Rome, Open City). A landmark in the emerging Italian neo-realist movement, the film earned them an Oscar screenplay nomination. After contributing to Rossellini’s 1946’s film Paisà, he directed his first film, Luci del varietà (Variety Lights) in 1950, a rollicking drama set in a travelling circus, which puzzled his neo-realist colleagues and fans. He returned to the neo-realist tradition with 1953’s I vitelloni (The Young and the Passionate), an autobiographical drama about the boredom of provincial life, which became his first major success. He had further success with La strada (The Road), a love story set in a circus, and Le notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria), both winning Oscars for best foreign film. He was catapulted to international celebrity with 1960’s La dolce vita (The Sweet Life), a dazzling portrait of a disillusioned journalist navigating a decadent, celebrity-obsessed Rome. Condemned by the Catholic Church but adored by audiences, the film made a star of Marcello Mastroianni and introduced the term “paparazzi” into the English language. He followed this with Otto e mezzo (8 1/2), a lightly-fictionalised self-portrait of a creatively-blocked and rampantly adulterous film director. A fascinating blend of bruising psychodrama, witty sex comedy and surrealist fantasy, it became an international hit, winning Fellini a third Oscar, and is regularly cited as one of the greatest films of all time. His later films delved further into surrealist landscapes, including the vampire film Giulietta degli spiriti (Juliet of the Spirits); Satyricon, a pageant of sexual decadence in Ancient Rome; and Casanova, based on the memoirs of Italy’s most famous serial shagger. He continued making films, with less success, until his death in 1993, aged 73. Awarded an honorary Oscar and many other honours for his contribution to film, he is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest directors. Fellini married the actress Giulietta Masina in 1943. After the death of their infant son in 1945, they remained childless, staying together until Fellini’s death, despite his constant adultery. Biographers and film historians have noted the frequent depictions of homosexuality and bisexuality in Fellini’s films and his intense friendships with younger gay men, notably his assistant (and future filmmaker) Pier Paolo Pasolini. Privately, Fellini appears to have been ambivalent about his sexuality, though no evidence exists of any sexual relationships with men.