American filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko was BOTD in 1964. Born in the San Fernando Valley, California to a middle-class Jewish family, she studied anthropology at San Francisco State University, where she was a teaching assistant to Angela Davis. After graduation, she moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in film, working as an assistant editor on John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood, Beeban Kidron’s Used People and Gus Van Sant‘s To Die For. She relocated to New York, studying filmmaking and screenwriting at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. In 1999, she wrote and directed her debut feature film High Art, a lesbian love story set in the druggy art scene of New York City. Featuring an impressive lead performance by 1980s Brat Pack star Ally Sheedy and a luscious visual aesthetic inspired by the photographs of Nan Goldin, it premiered at the Cannes Festival and won Cholodenko a screenwriting prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Her 2001 feature Laurel Canyon earned Independent Spirit Award nominations for its stars Frances McDormand and Alessandro Nivola, playing a middle-aged music producer having an affair with her decades-younger musical discovery. Cholodenko is best-known for directing and co-writing the 2011 film The Kids Are All Right, a comedy starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a lesbian couple whose teenaged children seek out their biological father. The film’s normalisation of lesbian relationships and middle-aged parenthood struck a chord with audiences and it became a critical and commercial hit, winning Golden Globes for best comedy film and earned four Oscar nominations including best picture and original screenplay. After directing episodes of queer-themed TV series Six Feet Under and The L Word, Cholodenko directed and co-produced a 2014 TV adaptation of Elizabeth Strout’s novel Olive Kitteridge, reuniting her with McDormand. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival, it became a critical and ratings hit, winning eight Emmy Awards, including outstanding limited series, lead actress and and best director. Cholodenko’s recent projects including the gritty 2019 TV drama Unbelievable starring Toni Collette. She lives in Los Angeles, and co-parents a son with her former partner Wendy Melvoin.