Born in New York in 1951, Abel Ferrara is an American filmmaker, known for the provocative and often controversial content of his films, his use of neo-noir imagery and gritty urban settings. He maintains a cult reputation that allows him to navigate between large-budget features and decadent B-movie-style tales. A long-time independent filmmaker, his best-known films include Ms .45 (1981), King of New York (1990), Bad Lieutenant (1992), The Funeral (1996) and Pasolini (2014). Ferrara has been a guest of LEFFEST several times, and his work was screened  in a Retrospective at LEFFEST’ 17.