Turkish filmmaker Ferzan Özpetek was BOTD in 1959. Born in Istanbul, he moved to Italy to study cinema history at the Sapienza University of Rome. After working in theatre, he became a director’s assistant in a number of Italian films. He wrote and directed his first film Hamam, a melodrama about the relationship between a married Italian man who inherits a Turkish bathhouse and has an affair with a young Turkish man. His best-known film, 2001’s Le Fati Ignoranti (The Ignorant Fairies), follows a similar trajectory, in which an Italian widow discovers her husband had a long-term affair with a younger man. His later films, Facing Windows, Saturn in Opposition and Loose Cannons centre the experience of LGBTQ characters, dealing with family members’ disapproval and homophobia. His latest film, 2019’s The Goddess of Fortune, focuses on a gay couple who foster a young child. Özpetek married his long-term partner Simone Pontesilli in 2016.