Lisbon - Tributes poured in Friday for Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who has died at the age of 106, after a long and fruitful career spanning the silent and digital eras of film.
Word of Oliveira's death on Thursday unleashed a flurry of tributes from artists, critics and politicians around Europe, with the Portuguese government decreeing two days of official mourning.
Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho was expected to attend the director's funeral Friday in his hometown Porto, and stars Oliveira had worked with rushed to pay tribute to his life and work.
"It is very difficult for me to imagine the world without his light," said American actor John Malkovich, who played in Oliveira's 2001 film, "I'm Going Home," about a successful Parisian actor forced to confront solitude, old age, and death when his family is killed in a car crash.
"It is very sad, but c'est la vie. He had a long, incredibly rich life," Malkovich told Portuguese television.
"Manoel de Oliveira was very special, at once both seductive and authoritarian, and often charming. He was above all an artisan, working incessantly on his films," French daily Liberation quoted actress Catherine Deneuve saying of the man with whom she made two movies.
AFP
