American filmmaker Ira Sachs was BOTD in 1965. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, he grew up in Park City. After studying at Yale University, he applied unsuccessfully to several film schools, eventually moving to New York City in 1988, where he worked as an assistant to filmmaker Norman René during the making of AIDS-themed drama Longtime Companion. He released his debut feature The Delta in 1996, a drama about a closeted gay man who forms a doomed relationship with a Vietnamese immigrant. He won acclaim for his 2012 film Keep the Lights On, a sombre drama about a gay filmmaker in a dysfunctional relationship with a drug-addicted lawyer, based on Sachs’ relationship with literary agent Bill Clegg. He continued his interest in gay domesticity with the 2014 film Love is Strange, starring Alfred Molina and John Lithgow as an elderly gay couple forced to live apart when one of them loses his job. His next film Little Men, focusing on a friendship between a gay teenager and his straight neighbour, was released in 2016. His 2019 film Frankie, starring Isabelle Huppert as a dying matriarch of a trans-Atlantic family, premiered at the Cannes Festival to middling reviews. After a prolonged sabbatical, he returned in 2023 with Passages, a drama about a bisexual filmmaker (captivatingly played by Franz Rogowski) who leaves his husband (Ben Whishaw) to live with a young actress. He reunited with Whishaw for his 2025 film Peter Hujar’s Day, a portrait of the New York-based gay photographer Peter Hujar. Openly gay since forever, Sachs married his long-term partner Boris Torres in 2012.