Bille August is a Danish film director and scriptwriter, born on November 9, 1948 in the city of Brede.
August he studied and graduated from the Foto- og Dokumentarskolan in Stockholm (Sweden) and the Danish Film Institute.
He began his career in the television industry, but soon became interested in the world of cinema. His first steps behind the camera were as a cinematographer for the drama. “Homeward in the Night“(1977); writing and directing with great critical success, already the following year,”Honning Maane“, a bourgeois drama about a worker’s marriage crisis.
In 1983 he returned to the cinema directing “Zappa“, a sensitive story of discovery and friendship between children, which earned him a place of respect among Scandinavian filmmakers.” Zappa “is based on a novel by Bjarne Reuter, a Danish writer and screenwriter known for his children’s books as well as the popular television series “Busters Verden”, which August took to the cinema in 1984. That same year, he directed “Twist and shout“, a semi-sequel to” Zappa, “set at a time when the Beatle phenomenon was exploding around the world.
His career reached its highest point when, in 1987, he made the film that many consider his masterpiece, “Pelle the Conqueror“starring @bio: Max von Sydow}. In addition to winning the Oscar for best foreign film, the film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, leading its director to international fame. Thanks to his Growing in popularity, the filmmaker soon attracted the interest of Swedish master Ingmar Bergman and, in 1992, the veteran director teamed up with a relatively newcomer Danish colleague to make the film. “Best intentions“directed by August and based on an autobiographical script by Bergman, which tells the story of his parents, prior to their birth, in 1918. Originally conceived as a six-hour television miniseries,” Best Intentions, “featuring Max von Sydow heading the cast, he obtained an excellent international reception in his film version, winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
It was right on the set of the film that the director fell in love with the Swedish actress Pernilla August, who, always at Cannes, won the award for Best Actress. The two married shortly thereafter and had two children before divorcing in 1997.
Despite having a stellar cast that included Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Vanessa Redgrave, Glenn Close, Antonio Banderas and Winona Ryder, August’s next film, “House of Spirits” (1993), was his first disappointment. professional. Based on the famous novel by Isabel Allende, the story of a family, from the early twentieth century to the decade of the ’70s in Chile, despite being a commercial success, was received with indifference by international critics.
His career continued with films like “Jerusalem” (nineteen ninety six), “Smila: Mystery in the Snow“(1997), the film adaptation of the novel by Victor Hugo”The Miserables“(1998),”A song for Martin“(2001), and”Return to Sender“(2004).
After participating in the collective film “To each his cinema“(2007) to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, August directed” The Color of Freedom – Goodbye Bafana “(2007) film set in 1968 in South Africa, where a racist Robben Island special prison guard, he sees his convictions change thanks to his prisoner, Nelson Mandela.
In 2011 he was hired as an art director for the Tianpeng Media company, with the aim of producing Chinese films. The director also accepted an invitation from the Hangzhou government to take up the post of cultural advisor to the city, where he had opened his offices.
In 2012, the filmmaker left international productions and returned to his homeland to direct “Marie kroyer“the story of the woman chosen as the most beautiful in Europe.
In 2013, the director returned to major co-productions with the historical and philosophical thriller “Night Train to Lisbon”, with Jeremy Irons, Melanie Laurent and Jack Huston leading the cast. Adapted from the bestseller of the same name by Pascal Mercier, it is the story of a Swiss professor who leads a monotonous and lonely life. After saving a Portuguese woman from suicide, for the first time in her life she is carried away by an impulse and abandons her job to go to Lisbon to investigate the life of a writer who fought against the Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.
In his personal life, August He is married to the Danish actress Sara-Marie Maltha. This is his fourth marriage after those he had with Pernilla August, Annie Munksgaard and Masja Dessau.