Anthony Minghella CBE

18 March 08

The Academy was deeply saddened to learn of the untimely passing of filmmaker Anthony Minghella on 18 March 2008. Here we look at the remarkable career of an exceptional talent.

Writer, director and producer Anthony Minghella was one of Britain's major filmmakers. He won his first BAFTA for the Original Screenplay of Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991). International acclaim followed, with three BAFTA nominations for The English Patient (1996), winning for Film and Adapted Screenplay, and nominations in the Direction and Adapted Screenplay categories for both The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) and Cold Mountain (2003). He also won an Oscar for directing The English Patient.

His last completed feature film as a director was the London-set Breaking and Entering (2006) which starred Jude Law and Juliette Binoche. He recently stepped down as Chairman of the British Film Institute before completing a TV adaptation of the bestselling novel The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency (due to air on BBC1, Easter Sunday), co-written with Richard Curtis.

Amongst his producer/executive producer credits were Michael Clayton (2007), Catch a Fire (2006), The Quiet American (2002), Heaven (2002) and Iris (2001) whilst his additional writing credits included TV's Grange Hill and Inspector Morse.

Speaking in December 2006 at a Life in Pictures event at the Academy, Minghella discussed his work and career, including dealing with immediate success and working out where his talents lie: “One of the things that is most notably different in America is that if you are embraced you are almost completely embraced, without reservation, immediately… I tried to be a director and discovered that I am not really a director, but what I am is a writer who is able to direct the films that he writes.”