A biographical film, or biopic ( /ˈbaɪɵpɪk/; abbreviation for biographical motion picture), is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their lives.

Because the figures portrayed are actual people, whose actions and characteristics are known, biopics are considered some of the most demanding films of actors and actresses. Johnny Depp, Jim Carrey, and Jamie Foxx all gained respect as dramatic actors after starring in biopics: Depp as Edward D. Wood, Jr. in Ed Wood (1994), Carrey as Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon (1999), and Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray (2004).

In rare cases, sometimes called autobiopics, the subject of the film plays himself or herself: Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story; Muhammad Ali in The Greatest; Audie Murphy in To Hell and Back; Patty Duke in Call Me Anna; Arlo Guthrie in Alice's Restaurant; and Howard Stern in Private Parts.

Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards. Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Success followed with a string of hits including "River Deep, Mountain High" and the 1971 hit "Proud Mary". With the publication of her autobiography I, Tina (1986), Turner revealed severe instances of spousal abuse against her by Ike Turner prior to their 1976 split and subsequent 1978 divorce. After virtually disappearing from the music scene for several years following her divorce from Ike Turner, she rebuilt her career, launching a string of hits beginning in 1983 with the single "Let's Stay Together" and the 1984 release of her fifth solo album Private Dancer.

Her musical career led to film roles, beginning with a prominent role as The Acid Queen in the 1975 film Tommy, and an appearance in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. She starred opposite Mel Gibson as Aunty Entity in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome for which she received the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture, and her version of the film's theme, "We Don't Need Another Hero", was a hit single. She appeared in the 1993 film Last Action Hero.

Lavinia Fontana (August 24, 1552 – August 11, 1614) was an Italian painter.

Lavinia Fontana was born in Bologna, the daughter of the painter Prospero Fontana, who was a prominent painter of the School of Bologna at the time and served as her teacher. Continuing the family business was typical at the time.

Her earliest known work, " Monkey Child", was painted in 1575 at the age of 23. Though this work is now lost, another early painting, Christ with the Symbols of the Passion, painted in 1576 is now in the El Paso Museum of Art. She would go on to paint in a variety of genres. Early in her career, she was most famous for painting upper-class residents of her native Bologna. She began her commercial practice by painting small devotional paintings on copper, which had popular appeal as papal and diplomatic gifts, given the value and lustre of the metal. She later created paintings of male and female nudes and large scale religious paintings.

Fontana married Paolo Zappi (alternately spelled Paolo Fappi) in 1577. She gave birth to 11 children, though only 3 outlived her. After marriage, Fontana continued to paint to support her family. Zappi took care of the household and served as painting assistant to his wife, including painting minor elements of paintings like draperies.

Sofonisba Anguissola (also spelled Anguisciola) (c. 1532 – 16 November 1625) was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona. She received a well-rounded education that included the fine arts and her apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art. Anguissola traveled to Rome, where she was introducted to Michelangelo who immediately recognized her talent, Milan, where she painted the Duke of Alba, Madrid, which was a turning point in her career serving as a court painter and painting many official portraits for the Spanish court, and Palermo, Pisa, and Genoa, where she was the leading portrait painter.

Self-portraits and family members were her most frequent subjects, but, in her later life, she also painted religious themes. Unfortunately, many of her religious paintings have been lost. Anguissola became a wealthy patron of the arts after the weakening of her sight. In 1625, she died at age ninety-three in Palermo. Anguissola's oeuvre had a lasting influence on subsequent generations of artists, and her great success opened the way for larger numbers of women to pursue serious careers as artists. Her paintings can be seen at galleries in Bergamo, Budapest, Madrid (Museo del Prado), Naples, Siena, and at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Farzaneh Milani is an Iranian-American scholar and author. She teaches Persian literature and Women’s Studies at the University of Virginia. Milani is Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures. She is also a poet, award-winning translator, and a recipient of the Carnegie Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Milani’s 1992 book Veils and Words: the Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers (Syracuse, 1992), is now in its sixteenth printing. Her latest book is Words, not Swords: Iranian Women Writers and the Freedom of Movement (Syracuse, March 2011).

A native of Tehran, Milani had an international educating, attending French schools in the lower grades before relocating to the United States. There, she attended the California State University at Hayward, graduating with a BA in French Literature in 1970, and the University of California in Los Angeles, obtaining a PhD in Comparative Literature in 1979. In 1986, after a four year stint at her alma mater as an instructor of Persian Language and Literature, she took a position at the University of Virginia.