Amber Heard Is ‘Finding Happiness’ After Johnny Depp Trial, Says Her In the Fire Director (Exclusive)

Amber Heard is in a good place more than a year after she and her ex-husband Johnny Depp faced off in a brutal defamation trial, according to a good friend. 

Conor Allyn, who directed Heard in the 19th century-set thriller In the Fire in the months leading up to the court case, tells PEOPLE the actress, 37, is doing well in Europe with her 2-year-old Oonagh Paige.

“She's living her best life in Spain with her daughter and just finding happiness in that way,” Allyn says of Heard, whose last public appearance was at the Taormina Film Festival in June for the In the Fire premiere. 

Allyn, who keeps in regular touch with the Aquaman star, adds that Heard has “moved on” from the legal ordeal with Depp, but adds, “I think people carry trauma for a long time.”

“Having gone through something like that on a global epic scale — you never just put that in a suitcase and stick in the attic and never see it again,” he says.

Depp, 60, who was married to Heard from 2015 to 2016, sued his ex for defamation after she wrote a  2018 Washington Post op-ed, in which she alleged she was a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”

She did not name Depp in the piece, and Depp has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

During a televised trial in a in Fairfax County, Va., courthouse, sordid details of their marriage were made public.

After six weeks of testimony, the jury largely ruled in Depp’s favor.  Heard paid her ex $1 million in damages (a settlement negotiated down from more than $10 million) earlier this year, a source confirmed to PEOPLE.

In the wake of the verdict, which Heard called “a setback” for women, the actress sold her home in Yucca Valley, Calif., for $1.1 million and left the spotlight behind for a quieter live in Spain with Oonagh Paige, whom she welcomed in 2021 as a single parent.

During the trial, Heard received death threats and became the subject of cruel Internet memes. “She just had to get out of the U.S.,” a source previously told PEOPLE of Heard. “It felt like too much chaos.”

Allyn now says the “parallels” between Heard’s real life and the character she plays in In the Fire are “considerable,” even though the events of the movie are set 130 years in the past.

She plays Dr. Grace Burnham, an American psychiatrist who travels to Colombia to evaluate a boy a priest and other locals believe is possessed by the Devil. Dr. Burnham is vilified by the townspeople.

Her character is “a fearless truth teller who comes to this remote valley and preaches a certain set of beliefs and is not believed,” says Allyn. “In real life, Amber is a fearless truth teller who sticks to her own convictions no matter what horrible trouble comes of that.”

Allyn says it’s “not a coincidence” that Heard “immediately felt a close connection to this character” when reading the script, which the director co-wrote.

“She’s had that public backlash. I mean, sure it hit a global apex during the televised trial. But she's been receiving a lot of public backlash since the day she filed for divorce. She's been going through that for years.”

The director says working with Heard was a “wonderful experience” because she was so dedicated, and that they’re already discussing future collaborations. 

“It’s really hard to make a movie, period, very hard to make an independent film,” he says. “You want people as a part of that team who are going to be as committed as you are and who care about the work, it’s not just a paycheck, it's like, ‘I'm out here to prove myself. I'm out here to do something special.’ That’s totally Amber and so I’d love to work with her on more stuff.”

In the Fire is in select theaters and available on demand Friday.