The family of Justin Hardy has said they are "devastated" following the director's death on Friday night. The film-maker, who was 61, suffered a heart attack, his family confirmed.
Family's tribute
In a statement to the Press Association, the family said: "Our family is devastated to share that Justin Hardy passed away last night. He was so full of life right to the end, and incredibly energised to be working towards premiering his latest film this month."
"We are all so proud of him and heartbroken he won't be with us at his premiere. He was a man of family, of boundless creativity, and of devotion for everyone he held dear."
A director with an incredible appetite for life
Dominic Hardy said his brother Justin would be remembered as someone "with an incredible appetite for life".
After reading history at Oxford University, Hardy studied film at Bournemouth and later scriptwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles. His directing credits include The Bill, Princes In The Tower, Trafalgar Battle Surgeon, The Relief Of Belsen, Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen and London's Burning.
He was nominated for an Emmy and a Bafta, and had recently been teaching screenwriting at University College London.
Continuing the Wicker Man legacy
Robin Hardy was best known for the 1973 folk horror classic The Wicker Man, starring Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland, in which a police officer visits the fictional Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate a missing girl.
In 2024, Justin and Dominic Hardy released the documentary Children Of The Wicker Man, exploring their complicated legacy with their father's magnum opus, a film that initially bombed at the box office before becoming a cult classic.
Robin Hardy died in 2016 aged 86, having spoken publicly about his desire to complete The Wicker Man trilogy after releasing The Wicker Tree in 2011. After his death, the brothers were contacted about the third film, which they saw as "the impetus to close the chapter on the films", Dominic said.
That final film, Wrath Of The Gods, was released this month. Inspired by a concept in a recently unearthed script by Robin, it stars Game of Thrones' Francis Magee and Norwegian actress Christiane Schaldemose. The story follows a woman isolated on an island where she is "torn between the ghosts of the past and the Gods of the present" and forced to confront "dark family secrets lurking in the shadows".
He made a film with a capital F
Dominic, an art historian at the University of Quebec in Montreal, said of his brother's final work: "He did an incredibly beautiful job with Wraths Of The Gods. When he showed the final version to me, I said, 'Now you have made a film with a capital F. It is your film. It is your vision', and it settles the legacy of our father, who had invented a massive thing of the same name, but Justin made something humanist telling an important story."
When the brothers last met in London a few weeks ago, Justin told Dominic: "I really love writing projects like this and if I could write things like this for the rest of my career, that would be great".
"It's just so sad that that's not going to happen," Dominic said. "We've lost him and we've lost that larger-than-life presence looking over us all. But I think the fact he made Wrath Of The Gods and made something new was a great satisfaction to him."
Justin Hardy is survived by his wife Larissa and children Sam, Ludo, Nico and Summer.
