European Films

 

The Swedish director of such classics as Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal), Persona and, most recently, Saraband, a follow-up to his Scener ur ett äktenskap (Scenes from a Marriage), died at his home on the island of Fårö in Sweden, his daughter  Eva has said to Swedish press agency TT. The director, who also had an enormously prolific career in television and in the theatre, was personally nominated for nine Oscars during his career, while three of his films have won the Best Foreign Language Oscar including Fanny och Alexander, which also won three other Oscars. The director, born in 1918 in Uppsala, won the Golden Bear in Berlin for Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries), won several prizes at the Cannes Film Festival including Best Director for Nära livet (So Close to Life) and won the Critics' Prize for Fanny och Alexander (Fanny and Alexander) and a Career Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. He is often mentioned as one of the three most influential directors in the world next to Fellini and Ozu, whom he has now joined.