Bille August

August was born on 9 November 1948, in Brede, Denmark.^[1] After attending local schools, he graduated from the Foto- och Dokumentärskolan in Stockholm, Sweden, and later from the National Film School of Denmark. He began his career as a cinematographer.^[2] He made his feature directorial debut in 1978 with In My Life, which won the Bodil Award for Best Danish Film.

He collaborated twice with then wife Pernilla August under George Lucas on The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones in The Perils of Cupid and Tales of Innocence. Pernilla would later star in the first two films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy and appeared in an episode of The Clone Wars television series to reprise her role from the films.

After decades of writing, directing and producing notable films in Denmark, on 23 September 2011, Bille August announced that he had opened a studio in Hangzhou, China and taken a position as Tianpeng Media's Art Director, in order to produce Chinese films for Tianpeng Media over the next few years. Tianpeng Media is a new media company established in 2010. The company produced two films, The Women Knight of Mirror (竞雄女侠秋瑾) and The Years of Qi Xiao Fu (七小福之燃情岁月), to be released later in 2011. He is the first foreign director to be hired by the Chinese film company. In 2011, August also accepted the invitation from the Hangzhou government to serve as a "culture consultant" for the city.^[3]

His film Night Train to Lisbon (2013) premiered out of competition at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival.^[4] He had planned to direct a Gianni Versace biopic with Antonio Banderas as Versace, but this project was cancelled.^[5][6] In August 2021, it was announced that August would direct a feature film adaptation of Karen Blixen's novel Ehrengard, which is being produced by Netflix and SF Studios.^[7]