Anthony Minghella (born January 6, 1954) is an Academy Award-winning British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was born on the Isle of Wight to an Italian/Scottish father and a mother who came from Leeds, whose ancestors originally came from Valvori, a small village in the Lazio region of central Italy.
He went to Sandown Grammar School and St John's College (Portsmouth). He is a graduate of the University of Hull where he completed both his undergraduate and graduate courses.
During the 1980s he worked in television, script editing the children's drama series Grange Hill for the BBC and later writing The Storyteller series for Jim Henson. He also worked on episodes of the popular ITV detective drama Inspector Morse.
His move into film occurred in 1990, when Truly, Madly, Deeply — a one-off drama he had written and directed for the BBC's Screen One anthology strand — became a major success when released to cinemas. This was Minghella's first work as a director, and he only chose to direct it himself as he thought that it would be little-watched and give him an opportunity to learn the craft before embarking on bigger projects. In order to make the film he had turned down an offer to direct an episode of Inspector Morse, which he thought would be a much higher-profile assignment. He won an Academy Award for his work as director of The English Patient.
He is currently the chairman of the British Film Institute. He vocally supported I Know I'm Not Alone, a film of musician Michael Franti's peacemaking excursions into Iraq, Palestine and Israel.
He directed a party election broadcast for the Labour Party in 2005. The short film depicted Tony Blair and Gordon Brown working together and was criticised for being insincere. "The Anthony Minghella party political broadcast last year was full of body language fibs", says Peter Collett, a psychologist at the University of Oxford. "When you are talking to me, I'll give you my full attention only if I think you are very high status or if I love you. On that part political broadcast, they are staring at each other like lovers. It is completely false."
His operatic debut was with Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY; first seen at the English National Opera in London in 2005; later seen at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Vilnius in March 2006 and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in September 2006.
He is married to Hong Kong-born choreographer Carolyn Choa. His brother, Dominic Minghella, is also a successful scriptwriter, and his son, Max Minghella, is an actor, his sister Edana Minghella is currently involved in a Jazz event on the Isle of Wight.
He is a big Portsmouth FC fan and appeared in a Channel 4 documentary Hallowed Be Thy Game talking about his passion for the club.
