Acclaimed British film, television and theatre director Antonia Bird has passed away at the age of 54. She initially made the step up to directing episodes of Eastenders, The Bill and Casualty in the 1980s after working in stage production. She made her first mark on the film world with the controversial drama PRIEST, which starred Linus Roache as a man of God wrestling with his secret life as a homosexual. The film, not surprisingly, was condemned by the Catholic Church.
She was a frequenter of working with Robert Carlyle, who also featured in PRIEST and led her terrific British gangster thriller FACE. However, a highlight their collaboration and arguably Bird’s career was the superb 1999 cannibal-themed American Civil War ensemble RAVENOUS. It’s an astonishing and often overlooked classic that saw Bird jump aboard after a plagued production with original director Milcho Manchevski departing two-weeks into the shoot. It has an awesome cast that includes Guy Pearce, David Arquette, Jeremy Davies, John Spencer, Jeffrey Jones and is darkly funny, stomach-churning with a memorable music score.
RAVENOUS was also the last film she worked on after being brought on by the suggestion of Carlyle. She later returned to the small-screen.
