Lajos Koltai has worked as a cinematographer with some of cinema's foremost directors, including Istvan Szabo ("Being Julia") and Luis Mandoki ("White Palace"). He was behind the camera when Jodie Foster directed "Home For the Holidays," but it wasn't until 2005 when Koltai debuted as director with "Fateless," which garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film.
Koltai, who's from Hungary, was one of the first generation of cinema artists that left Eastern Europe for the West to pursue a successful Hollywood career when the Iron Curtain came down.
"You can say that in my own way, I lived the American Dream," laughs Koltai. "But I like my current position — spending my time flying back and forth between Europe and the United States. Work and travel has become so much easier than when I first started in the business."