Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller, the first Oscar-nominated female director, whose work tackled political and social issues, has died. She was 93.
The pioneering director died Thursday at her home in Rome surrounded by her family, according to the La Presse news agency and the Italian Culture Ministry.
"Italy mourns the death of Lina Wertmuller, a director who, with her class and unmistakable style, has left a lasting mark in our cinema and in the world," Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said in a statement posted online, praising her "long and intense career, delivering works to which each of us will remain forever attached."
The Rome-born, nonconformist filmmaker made Academy Award history for her work on the 1975 film "Seven Beauties" (released in Italian as "Pasqualino Settebellezze"). The Holocaust period piece starring Wertmuller's longtime muse, Giancarlo Giannini, was nominated for four Oscars at the 1977 awards ceremony, including best screenplay, foreign language film, directing for Wertmuller and acting for Giannini.
Although the directing trophy went to John G. Avildsen for "Rocky" that year, 42 years later, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bestowed an honorary Oscar upon Wertmuller at the 2019 Governors Awards.
She became the third woman to receive an Oscar for her work as a director, following Kathryn Bigelow's historic win in 2010 for "The Hurt Locker" and French New Wave pioneer Agnes Varda's honorary Oscar in 2017. "Nomadland" director Chloe Zhao became the fourth winner when she won the award in 2021 for "Nomadland."
Wertmuller began her career assisting famed Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini on 1963's "8 1/2." With unflinching ambition and satirical social commentary, the often misunderstood auteur also made the films "The Basilisks" (1963), "The Seduction of Mimi" (1972), "Love and Anarchy" (1973) and "Swept Away" (1974).
She worked almost exclusively in the Italian film industry, but believed that the experiences of women striving to break the mold were universal.
"Everybody conquers the space that they manage to conquer," she said. "I don't see much of a difference between Europe and America."
After her '70s golden age, critics and awards officials, for reasons that were "a mystery" to Wertmuller, largely turned their backs on her later works — but some projects, such as 1999's "Ferdinando and Carolina," have earned delayed admiration.
"Because I have been able to be myself, I've been able to make the kind of films that I did," she told the Los Angeles Times in 2019. "When this could happen, and somebody didn't want to support one of [my] ideas, I would move on and go to another producer or go find another way to make the film."
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