Italian director and screenwriter Francesco Rosi, whose films took on corruption in postwar Italy, winning top honors at the Venice and Cannes film festivals, has died. He was 92.
Rosi's most famous works include "Hands over the City," a film about political corruption that won the won the Golden Lion at Venice in 1963, and "The Mattei Affair," which dealt with the mysterious death of an oil tycoon. It won the Golden Palm at Cannes in 1972.
Italian filmmakers, from Oscar-winner Paolo Sorrentino to long-time friend and collaborator Franco Zeffirelli, mourned Rosi's death on Saturday.
Zeffirelli said in a statement that Rosi was for him "a friend, a lifetime companion and brother," and that the loss was "like experiencing a mutilation." Zeffirelli, 92, and Rosi started out together as assistants to Luchino Visconti, becoming collaborators and life-long friends.
Born in Naples, Rosi was an innovator of socially committed filmmaking that took on both controversy and corruption in Italian society.
In addition to the awards in Venice and Cannes, he won a Silver Bear in Berlin in 1961 with "Salvatore Giuliano," a film about a Sicilian bandit.
He was also honored in 2012 with a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement for having left "an indelible mark on the history of Italian filmmaking."
"There are directors, and they are few and far between, who are capable of constructing worlds, and they do it by the invention of methods and styles. Rosi was one of the very few," Sorrentino was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA.
Roberto Saviano, whose book "Gomorrah" about Italian organized crime became an award-winning film, said on Twitter that "no one knew how to portray power like Francesco Rosi."
The cause of Rosi's death wasn't released, but Corriere della Sera reported he had been suffering from bronchitis.
He is survived by daughter, Carolina, an actress. His wife of nearly 50 years, Giancarla Mandelli, died in 2010 at age 83, when her clothing caught fire from a cigarette.
Rosi's body will lie in state for mourners to pay tribute at Rome's Casa del Cinema on Monday.
