Rome, Jan 21 (IANS/AKI) Ettore Scola, a leading figure in Italian cinema for over three decades, has died, his family said.
Scola had been in a coma since Sunday after being admitted to the cardiac surgery unit of Romes polyclinic and died at the hospital on Tuesday, his family said on Wednesday.
Italian premier Matteo Renzi paid tribute to Scola on Twitter. "He was an incredible and acute master in interpreting of Italy and its changes, he leaves a huge void in Italian culture," Renzi tweeted.
Scola, who directed over 40 films, was best known for "We All Loved Each Other So Much", a 1974 portrait of post-war Italy that starred Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman and Stefania Sandrelli.
In the comedy-drama, a group of friends and former partisans who fought for the liberation of Italy are torn apart by events in their lives.
One of Scola's most acclaimed films was 'A Special Day', a 1977 Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated movie starring Marcello Mastroianni as a persecuted gay radio journalist in fascist Italy and Sophia Loren as a repressed sentimental housewife married to a staunch follower of dictator Benito Mussolini.
Scola retired in 2011, saying he was too old to handle the bureaucracy of making films in Italy, but in 2013 made a documentary about his friend and mentor, director Federico Fellini, who died in 1993, 'How Strange to be Named Federico'.
