Kapur to direct Minghella segment of film

LONDON, March 26 (UPI) -- Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur said he will direct a segment of "New York, I Love You," an episodic movie written by the late director Anthony Minghella.

Minghella died in London last week of a hemorrhage following surgery to treat cancer of the tonsils and neck. He was 54.

Minghella had planned to shoot a segment of the film in Manhattan next month but Kapur, the director of "Elizabeth" and "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," will do it instead, the BBC said.

"I will direct the film with Anthony in my heart and in presence of his soul," Kapur wrote on his Web site, adding that Minghella asked him to take the reins shortly before undergoing surgery.

"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," Kapur wrote. "Anthony was completely alert and aware of his own mortality at this time. As long as I had known him he had valued life in a creative and compassionate way."

Directors Mira Nair and Brett Ratner, as well as actress Scarlett Johansson, are also to direct vignettes in the film.