Susanne Bier (Danish: ; born 15 April 1960) is a Danish film director, screenwriter, and producer. She is best known for her feature films Brothers, After the Wedding, In a Better World, and Bird Box, and the TV miniseries The Night Manager. Bier is the first female director to win a Golden Globe, an Emmy Award, and a European Film Award, collectively.
Susanne Bier was born to a Jewish family in Copenhagen, Denmark on 15 April 1960. The family of her father, Rudolf Salomon Baer (born 1930), emigrated from Germany to Denmark in 1933 after Hitler's rise to power. The family of her mother, Heni (née Jonas; born 1936), emigrated to Denmark from Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, to escape rising anti-semitism. In 1943, the two families fled from Denmark to Sweden, together with most Danish Jews, to escape the deportation to the Nazi death camps. Three years after the end of World War II, they returned to Denmark. The effects of the Holocaust caused Bier's parents to instill the strong moral values and principles into their children. Later, the importance of human resilience and dignity would be a recurring theme in her films.