English filmmaker Richard Kwietniowski was BOTD in 1957. Born in London, he studied film at the University of Kent and UCLA Berkeley, later lecturing at Bulmershe College of Higher Education. He began making short films in the 1980s, based on the works of gay writers Oscar Wilde and Marcel Proust. He is best known for his 1997 feature film debut Love and Death on Long Island, an adaptation of Gilbert Adair‘s novel about a reclusive English writer who falls in love with a young American soap opera actor (itself loosely based on Thomas Mann‘s novella Death in Venice). Starring John Hurt and an impeccably-cast Jason Priestley, the film debuted at the Cannes Festival to critical acclaim. His next feature, the little-seen Canadian drama Owning Mahowny, starred Philip Seymour Hoffman with Hurt in a supporting role. Kwietniowski lives in London, where he teaches directing at the London Film School.