Born in Brede, near Copenhagen, in 1948, Bille August trained as a cinematographer at the Swedish Film School and shot films before turning to direction. Pelle the Conqueror (1987), the story of a Swedish immigrant father and son on a Danish farm in the 1880s, won the Palme d'Or and the Oscar for foreign language film. He won the Palme d'Or again for The Best Intentions (1992), from a script by Ingmar Bergman, which makes him one of the few directors to have won it twice. He later made The House of the Spirits (1993) and Les Misérables (1998) in English.
Filmography
- Twist and Shout (1985)
- Pelle the Conqueror (1987)
- The Best Intentions (1992)
- The House of the Spirits (1993)
- Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997)
- Les Misérables (1998) (1998)
- Goodbye Bafana (2007)
- Night Train to Lisbon (2013)