Franz Seitz, one of Germany’s most prolific film producers, has died at the age of 84, his son said on Tuesday.
Seitz produced about 80 films, including The Tin Drum, an adaptation of the novel by Nobel laureate Guenter Grass that in 1980 became the first German picture to win an Oscar for best foreign film.
The film, about a young boy’s perceptions of the rise of Nazism, also won the Golden Palm award at the Cannes film festival in 1979.
He died in his native Bavaria, in southern Germany, after a long illness, his son said.
The Premier of Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber, on Tuesday hailed Seitz as one of the “most prolific and fascinating” figures in German cinema.
“He could do everything. He was at home in all genres: as a producer, director and screenwriter,” Stoiber said.
Seitz also co-wrote the 1974 hit When Mother Went on Strike and scripts for Doctor Faustus and Once a Greek.
He co-produced French director Louis Malle’s Murmur of the Heart in 1970. — AFP