British director Terence Davies dies

Beloved British screenwriter and director Terence Davies has died at the age of 77.

The Liverpudlian filmmaker established himself with his trilogy of short films - Children, Madonna and Child, and Death and Transfiguration - in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

He died peacefully at home after a short illness on Saturday, his manager confirmed in a statement to the BBC.

Davies' latest film for Netflix, Benediction, starring Slow Horses actor Jack Lowden and Doctor Who's Peter Capaldi, was about the life of war poet Siegfried Sassoon, and was released last year. Other notable films included 2015's Sunset Song, A Quiet Passion, starring Cynthia Nixon as poet Emily Dickinson, and Distant Voices, Still Lives.

The latter movie, based on his memories of his childhood in Liverpool in the 1940s and 1950s, won the Cannes International Critics Prize and is often cited as among the greatest British films of all time.

Other films include a 2000 adaptation of The House of Mirth, a 2011 adaption of Terence Rattigan's play The Deep Blue Sea, starring Rachel Weisz, and his acclaimed collage documentary, Of Time and the City - which again focused on post-war Liverpool.