Italian avant-garde filmmaker Tinto Brass, best known for directing scandalous Roman epic Caligula, has died aged 93.
The news of his death was announced to Italian news agency Ansa by his wife Caterina Varzi and children Bonifacio and Beatrice.
Brass’s early experimental works included 1964’s Who Works Is Lost and La Vacanza, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero, which both premiered at Venice, and London-shot Deadly Sweet starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Ewa Aulin.
He moved into erotic fare with 1976’s Salon Kitty and 1979’s Caligula with Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren. On the latter Brass disavowed the project after he was removed before the editing.
Brass continued directing into his 70s, with 1967’s Deadly Sweet chosen as “pre-opening” film for this year’s Venice film festival.
Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera said of Brass: “It is completely reductive to reduce him to an erotic filmmaker. During the 1960s, he was one of the most important filmmakers of the avant-garde – and then, of course, he started to make erotic films. In a way, he started to make erotic films visible in the mainstream culture in Italy at the time.”
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