Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer was BOTD in 1889. Born in Copenhagen, he was raised in an orphanage and adopted by a strict Calvinist family. He worked as a journalist and a title cards writer for silent films, directing his first film in 1919. His 1924 drama Michael, chronicling a painter who falls in love with his beautiful young male model, was one of the first films to portray a homosexual relationship, and thought to be inspired by Dreyer’s affair with a man. In the late 1920s, he moved to Paris, befriending the gay artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau. He is best known for his 1928 film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc), starring the Italian actress Maria Falconetti. Based on the official records of Joan’s trial, the film combined Nordic austerity with German Expressionist features, and a sustained use of close-ups. Cut to shreds by censors before its release, it was critically well-received but a commercial failure. Dreyer’s original cut was thought to have been lost, until a print was discovered in a mental institution in Norway in 1981. His 1932 film Vampyr, financed by and starring the notorious homosexual Nicolas de Gunzburg, also failed to find an audience. In 1943’s Vredens dag (Day of Wrath), a story of witchcraft and religious paranoia in 16th century Norway, Dreyer embedded a critique of the Nazi occupation of Denmark. He finally achieved critical and commercial success with Ordet, a story about a Danish peasant who believes he is Jesus Christ, winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Breyer married Ebba Larsen in 1911, with whom he had two children. He died in 1968, aged 79. Now hailed as a cinematic master, his films, particularly Joan of Arc and Ordet, are regularly listed as among the greatest films of all time.