Ira Sachs

Sachs stepped away from gay themes for his most widely seen picture, "Married Life" (2007), a sort of period noir-cum-personal drama with Chris Cooper as a philandering but tormented businessman who pursued a drastic solution to alleviating his wife's sadness over their passionless romance. Co-starring Patricia Clarkson, Pierce Brosnan and Rachel McAdams and featuring a script by Oscar nominee Oren Moverman, the film enjoyed a limited theatrical release in 2008 and minor box office returns. The short "Last Address," which showcased the apartment buildings where artists who died of AIDS last lived, was released in 2010. Two years later, he returned to features with "Keep the Lights On" (2012), a drama that documented the relationship between a Danish filmmaker (Thule Lindhardt) and an American lawyer (Zachary Booth) who struggled with drug and sex addiction. The film, inspired in part by Sachs' own relationship with literary agent Bill Clegg, who detailed his life in the memoir Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man (2010), captured the Berlin International Film Festival's Teddy Award, as well as a Grand Jury Prize nomination from the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. That same year, it received an Indie Spirit Award nomination for Best Feature, while Sachs was nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay. By Paul Gaita