British filmmaker Hugh Hudson, director of ‘Chariots of Fire,’ dies

Kim Bassinger and Hugh Hudson, director of ‘Chariots of Fire’ / COLUMBIA

Oscar winner for best director, he died at Charing Cross Hospital in London, the city where he was born

Film director Hugh Hudson has died this Friday at the age of 86 in London after failing to overcome a “short illness”, as reported by his own family in a statement sent to the media. In his professional career, he highlighted the film ‘Chariots of Fire’ (1981), with which he won four Oscars.

Hudson began his film career shooting documentaries and commercials with Ridley Scott in the 1960s, and after his success he launched into fiction, where he began directing the second unit of Alan Parker’s film, ‘The Midnight Express’.

At that time he came into contact with David Puttnam, who produced ‘Chariots of Fire’, a film that won four Oscars and tells the true story of two British medalists from the 1924 Paris Olympics with different origins and motivations.

He later shot ‘Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan’ and ‘Revolution’, a story about the War of Independence starring Al Pacino and Donald Sutherland.

The British filmmaker also worked in 2016 with the actor Antonio Banderas, who starred in one of his latest films, ‘Altamira’, which narrates the discovery of the caves and cave paintings of Altamira in the 19th century, as well as the confrontation and conflict that this discovery caused with the church and the society of the time.