Acclaimed Spanish director Carlos Saura dead at 91

Acclaimed Spanish director Carlos Saura, who hit the global spotlight in the 1960s with his critiques of Franco’s dictatorship, died Friday at the age of 91, the Spanish film academy said.

“He died today at his home at the age of 91, surrounded by his loved ones,” the academy wrote on Twitter, describing him as “one of the most important filmmakers in the history of Spanish cinema”.

“Carlos Saura has left us, a fundamental figure in Spanish culture,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.

“His talent is and will always be part of the cultural heritage of our history… We say goodbye to the director of imagination but his cinema remains,” added the socialist leader.

The Spanish royal family also paid their respects.

“His cinema will never die. Goodbye Carlos Saura,” the Royal Household tweeted, along with a photo showing the filmmaker chatting with the king and queen.

Born on January 4, 1932 in the northeastern town of Huesca, Saura was known for his “never-ending activity” and “love for his craft, which continued until the end,” with his latest film hitting Spanish cinemas just a week ago, it said.

He died just a day before he was to have been awarded an honorary Goya, Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars, for his decades-long career which was to have been presented at the 37th Goya Awards ceremony in the southern city of Seville.

– ‘Indispensable work’ –

“Carlos Saura, filmmaker, photographer, set designer and all-round artist, has gone,” tweeted Culture Minister Miquel Iceta, saying his career had received “all the awards imaginable”.

Often named as one of the greats of Spanish cinema alongside names like Luis Bunuel and Pedro Almodovar, Saura directed some 50 films over a career spanning half a century, during which he received numerous awards.

In a 2016 interview with AFP, the filmmaker said that recognition in his country had come “with old age”, recalling the criticism, sometimes fierce, received by his first films.

In his early years, Saura focused on the evils of society, first winning international recognition with “The Hunt” (1966), a critique of the regime of dictator Francisco Franco which won the Berlin Film Festival’s second-highest award.

“With Carlos Saura, a very important part of the history of Spanish cinema is dying. He leaves behind him an indispensable work for deep reflection on the behaviour of the human being. Rest in peace my friend,” said actor Antonio Banderas.

After the dictatorship ended with Franco’s death in 1975, he shifted his focus to his love of music and dance with his 1980s trilogy of flamenco films “Blood Wedding”, “Carmen” and “A Love Bewitched”.

Many critics consider his best work to be “Cria Cuervos” (1975), an allegory of the dictatorship that suffocated his country until that same year, and which won the Jury Prize at Cannes a year later.

Married several times and the father of several children, Saura also had a relationship with his muse Geraldine Chaplin, with whom he had a child.