Italian film director Gillo Pontecorvo has died in Rome at the age of 86.
Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Pisa, Pontecorvo worked in journalism before making his first films in the 1950s and is regarded as one of Italian cinema's greatest film-makers despite making relatively few movies.
He was famous for The Battle of Algiers, a starkly realistic depiction of Algeria's war of independence from France,
Italian news agency ANSA reported he died in Rome's Gemelli hospital last night.
The Battle of Algiers, which Pontecorvo co-wrote and directed in 1966, won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion and was nominated for three Oscars: best director, best screenplay and best foreign language film.
The documentary-style black and white film showed brutality on both sides of the 1954-62 war, including bombings of civilians by militants and torture by the military, and was banned in France for several years.
In 2003 the Pentagon screened the film to officers and civilian experts who were considering the challenges faced by the US military in Iraq, the New York Timesreported.