Leonardo Favio, Argentine film director, dies

One of Argentina's best known film directors, Leonardo Favio, has died in Buenos Aires. He was 74 and had been in poor health for some years, BBC News reported.


As well as a film director, Favio was also a much-loved singer-songwriter, and had a number of hits in Latin America in the '60s and '70s.


He rose to fame with ballads like She Already Forgot Me (Ella ya me olvido), You Were Mine One Summer (Fuiste mia un verano) and Or Perhaps I'll Just Give Her A Rose (O quizas simplemente le regale una rosa).


"Music allowed me to live with dignity," he once told an interviewer.


With more than 10 films to his name, he quickly stood out as a quality film-maker who also enjoyed great popularity.


His most successful movie, Nazarene Cross and the Wolf, (Nazareno Cruz y el lobo), was released in 1975. It is about the seventh son of a couple, Nazarene Cross, who falls in love with a beautiful girl but later is visited by the devil. The devil offers him wealth if he turns his back on his love for her, or be turned into a wolf.


More than three-and-a-half million people watched the film in Argentina - a record for a local movie.


His last film, Aniceto, was released in 2008. It was a re-make of a previous film of his from 1966 (The romance of Aniceto and Francisca). It won nine awards from the Argentine Film Critics Association, the Silver Condors, including best film and best director.