Terence Davies

Terence Davies was born in Liverpool, the youngest of ten children in a devout Catholic working-class family. He worked as a shipping clerk and accounting assistant for a decade before training at the Coventry Drama School and the National Film and Television School (NFTS), where he completed his renowned autobiographical short film trilogy.

In 1988, Davies achieved international cinematic immortality with Distant Voices, Still Lives, a haunting, musical portrait of family trauma, communal warmth, and pub singalongs under the shadow of an abusive father in 1940s and 50s Liverpool. It won the prestigious FIPRESCI International Critics' Prize at Cannes. He followed with The Long Day Closes (1992), celebrated for its transcendent camerawork, the exquisite Edith Wharton adaptation The House of Mirth (2000) starring Gillian Anderson, and poet biopics A Quiet Passion (Emily Dickinson) and Benediction (Siegfried Sassoon).