French filmmaker Jacques Demy was BOTD in 1931. Born in Pont-Château, he studied filmmaking at the Ecole nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière, and worked as an assistant to directors Paul Grimault and Georges Roquier. His first short film, an adaptation of Jean Cocteau‘s play Le Bel indifférent (The Indifferent Lover), was followed by his 1961 feature debut Lola, starring Anouk Aimée as a cabaret singer. Dispensing with the naturalistic vision of Nouvelle Vague filmmaking, Demy took inspiration from Hollywood musicals, with vivid colours, theatrical sets and characters bursting spontaneously into song (composed by his long-term collaborator Michel Legrand). His next film La Baie des Anges (The Bay of Angels), a romance about a middle-aged woman who leaves her family for the casinos of Monte Carlo, starred Jeanne Moreau and with costumes by Pierre Cardin. A box office hit, it established Demy as one of France’s leading filmmakers. He is best known for Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), a gorgeous Technicolour musical starring Catherine Deneuve as a young woman falling hopelessly in love with a car mechanic. A critical and commercial sensation, it won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival, was nominated for five Oscars and remains one of the most beloved musical films of all time. Demy had further success with his 1967 musical comedy Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort), starring Deneuve and her real-life sister Françoise Dorléac and featuring a dance appearance by Gene Kelly. Another box office hit, it earned an Oscar nomination for Legrand’s score. Lured to Hollywood, he made his first English-language drama Model Shop, an uncharacteristically dour naturalistic drama that was a critical and commercial flop. He returned to France in 1970 to make Peau d’Âne (Donkey Skin), a musical adaptation of a fairy tale starring Deneuve, Jean Marais and Delphine Seyrig. He also turned heads with Lady Oscar, a historical drama about a cross-dressing aristocrat. Demy was married to fellow filmmaker Agnès Varda, with whom he had two children. He continued making films, with varying success, until his death in 1990, aged 59. After his death, Varda revealed that Demy was bisexual and had died of an AIDS-related illness.