ROME , June 9 (UPI) -- Italian director Dino Risi, whose films included "Profumo di Donna," "Il Sorpasso" and "Poveri e Belli," has died in Rome at age 90.
ANSA said Risi's family, friends and colleagues gathered for a non-religious memorial in his honor at the House of Cinema Monday.
"Dino and I made the same types of films which looked at the reality of Italian life without any intention of sending a message," director Mario Monicelli said.
"We were part of a group of filmmakers who were in love with their profession and who were aware that we were a 'group.' There was never any jealousy or envy between us, never an argument. Many defined Risi as being cynical or disenchanted with life. But it wasn't he who was cynical but society," Monicelli explained. "A society which our cinema chose to unveil without pity, to underscore the problems and shortcomings of a world which was rapidly and irreversibly changing into something horrible, dominated by consumerism, competition and the rules of the market. Dino had the courage to go right to the bottom of this without giving anything or anybody any benefit of the doubt."
