The Berlinale Mourns the Loss of Ermanno Olmi

After a long battle with illness, Italian film director and screenwriter Ermanno Olmi passed away on May 7, 2018, at the age of 86.

Ermanno Olmi was among the seasoned masters of Italian auteur cinema. He presented his feature film debut Il tempo si è fermato (Time Stood Still) in 1959, which he wrote and directed. Over the course of his long and storied career, Ermanno Olmi made many fiction and documentary films and always broached social and religious themes in his very own style. Ermanno Olmi was frequently recognized for his work and was a guest of the Berlinale on numerous occasions, including in 1988 with his masterpiece L’albero d’egli zoccoli (The Tree of Wooden Clogs) in Retrospective. The adventure film Cantando dietro i paraventi (Singing Behind the Screens, 2004) and the documentary Terra Madre (2009) both screened in Berlinale Special. His most recent film to screen at the Berlinale was Torneranno i prati (Greenery Will Bloom Again) in 2015.

“We are saddened by the loss of a great director and screenwriter whose style of poetic realism helped shape film history,” says festival director Dieter Kosslick.