Elizabeth director Shekar Kapur is to shoot a short film Anthony Minghella had written and was preparing to make before his sudden death last week.

Kapur said the Oscar-winning director phoned him two days before he underwent surgery for cancer of the throat and neck and asked him to complete the film. Minghella, who was 54, died from complications following the operation.

Writing on his blog, Kapur said Minghella was one of a group of directors making a collection of films called New York – I Love You. He had written his segment and planned to shoot it in Manhattan in April.

“Anthony was supposed to direct it himself but given his sudden illness could not do so,” Kapur wrote.

“He told me his film was about the value of life, and how people sometimes just throw away their lives unable to look beyond into the real beauty of it. Anthony was completely alert and aware of his own mortality at this time, and as long as I had known him, he had valued life in a creative and compassionate way.”

The pair had not spoken for several years, but in the past they had shared “long conversations about the nature of spirituality, life and death,” which was why Minghella chose Kapur to shoot the film, he said.

“He recalled those conversations - saying that it was those conversations too that lead him to believe that I should be the one to direct this short film. We spoke once again about the nature of life and mortality,” Kapur wrote.

Paying tribute to the English Patient director, Kapur, who left a successful career in Bollywood to shoot Elizabeth and last year’s sequel in the UK, said: “Anthony and his beautiful Chinese wife Carolyn were the first people to open up their home to me after I came to the UK to direct Elizabeth.”

“Anthony was compassionate and wise. His smile was one of the kindest I have known. He cared about other people.”

Kapur will join 12 other directors in filming for New York – I Love You, including actresses Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, both making their directing debuts.

“I will direct the film now - with Anthony in my heart and in presence of his soul,” Kapur said.

Minghella was working on several other projects, including the thriller The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, but their fates have yet to be decided.

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