Italian screenwriter D'Amico dies, aged 96
Suso Cecchi D'Amico, the Italian screenwriter of such celebrated movies as Bicycle Thieves and The Leopard, has died in Rome at the age of 96.
D'Amico worked with many Italian greats and was nominated for an Oscar in 1966 for her contribution to Casanova 70.
Michelangelo Antonioni, Mario Monicelli and Franco Zeffirelli were among those with whom she collaborated.
The latter film-maker remembered her as "an extraordinary screenwriter" who was "a mom and a sister to all of us."
According to Italian news agency ANSA, D'Amico died on Saturday and is survived by her three children.
In 1994 she received a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film Festival.
Born Giovanna Cecchi in 1914 to a family of writers and intellectuals, D'Amico began working in cinema soon after the end of World War II.
Bicycle Thieves was one of her first films and became one of the key works of the neorealist movement that came to prominence in post-war Italy.
Later successes included the comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street and historical drama The Leopard, one of several films she made with Luschino Visconti.
President Giorgio Napolitano called her a "great protagonist of one of the best seasons of Italian cinema."