American filmmaker Gus Van Sant was BOTD in 1952. Born in Louisville, Kentucky to a middle-class family, he had a nomadic childhood, as his family moved continuously to follow his father’s marketing job. He developed an early talent for painting and photography, studying at the Rhode Island School of Design, which led him to filmmaking. He relocated to Los Angeles in 1976, working as a production assistant and directing TV commercials. He turned heads with his 1985 feature debut, the gritty gay-themed drama Mala Noche. After an unsuccessful period trying to pitch film scripts in Hollywood, he moved to Oregon to develop his projects independently of the studio system. He rose to wider public attention with 1989’s Drugstore Cowboy, a drama about unfeasibly sexy drug addicts robbing pharmacies to support their habit, winning an Independent Film Award for his screenplay. Quickly identified as an edgy indie director, he directed music videos for The Red Hot Chili Peppers, David Bowie, Tracy Chapman and Elton John, many featuring his friend and mentor William S. Burroughs. His 1991 feature My Own Private Idaho, a wistful love story about a narcoleptic hustler who falls in love with his best friend, with dialogue lifted from Shakespeare‘s Henry IV, became one of the decade’s most celebrated films, making stars of River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves and placing Van Sant at the centre of the New Queer Cinema movement. His career nosedived spectacularly with a flat remake of Tom Robbins’ lesbian comedy Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, despite an amusing drag cameo by John Hurt and a soulfully Sapphic score by k d lang. He made an impressive recovery with the 1995 film To Die For, an witty satire starring Nicole Kidman as a murderously ambitious TV presenter. He achieved his greatest commercial success with 1997’s Good Will Hunting, a drama about a troubled maths genius who develops a bromance with his therapist. Written by and starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, the film was a critical and commercial hit, earning US $225 million at the American box office, nominated for nine Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, and winning for its screenplay and Robin Williams’ supporting performance. His next studio-funded project, a lifeless shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho, was a box office bomb, followed by the commercially successful but derivative Finding Forrester. He returned to arthouse pre-eminence with his 2003 film Elephant, an elliptical drama about two gay teenagers who commit a Columbine-style high school shooting, winning the Palme d’Or and Best Director at the Cannes Festival. His 2008 film Milk, a stirring biopic of gay politician Harvey Milk, became one of his greatest critical and commercial successes, nominated for eight Oscars including Best Film and Best Director, and winning for Sean Penn’s lead performance and Dustin Lance Black‘s screenplay. His subsequent films Restless, Promised Land, The Sea of Trees and Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot have attracted smaller arthouse audiences. A longtime supporter of LGBTQ themed-films, Van Sant’s producer credits include Larry Clark’s Kids, Jonathan Caouette‘s Tarnation, Xavier Dolan‘s Laurence Anyways and Justin Kelly’s I Am Michael. Openly gay since forever, his relationship status is unknown.