Tinto Brass Dies at 93

Director Tinto Brass died in Rome on 4 November 2026, aged 93. The news was announced by his wife, Caterina Varzi, and his children, Bonifacio and Beatrice.¹² Brass was born in Milan on 26 March 1933. For the funeral, the family is planning, for now, a strictly private ceremony.³¹

What we know about Tinto Brass’s death

According to Adnkronos, the director died suddenly on the morning of 4 November at his home in Rome, and his wife gave the news to the agency. Sky TG24 puts the time at around 10.30.⁴¹ The Guardian reports that his wife and children also announced his death to the Ansa agency, on Wednesday.²

Who was Tinto Brass

Registered at birth as Giovanni Brass, he grew up in Venice. According to Sky TG24, his stage name comes from a family nickname linked to Tintoretto, given to him by his grandfather, the painter Italico Brass.¹⁵ A law graduate, he worked in Paris as an archivist at the Cinémathèque Française. Back in Italy, he was an editor and assistant director to Roberto Rossellini.²⁶ He made his feature debut in 1963 with “Chi lavora è perduto”, a film shot in Venice and selected for the Venice Film Festival. Repubblica describes it as pure Nouvelle Vague, the French movement that renewed the language of cinema in the 1960s.⁷⁶

From experimental to erotic cinema

According to Il Post, before “La chiave” (1983) Brass had twenty years of work behind him and 13 feature films, none of them erotic. That part of his filmography, experimental and praised by critics, is the lesser-known half of his work.⁸ At this year’s Venice Film Festival, the restoration of “Col cuore in gola”, a 1967 thriller set in London starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, was presented.⁸ In the 1970s he moved into erotic cinema, with titles such as “Salon Kitty” (1976) and “Caligula”. “La chiave”, “Paprika” (1991), “Così fan tutte” (1992), “Monella” (1998) and “Capriccio” followed.⁹²⁶ Brass and screenwriter Gore Vidal quarreled during the making of “Caligula” and then disowned the film. The director was unhappy with the editing, done after he had been removed from the project. Over time, however, the film has acquired a cult following, and a 178-minute “ultimate cut” was presented at Cannes in 2023.⁶ Brass told the newspaper La Repubblica that he made so many erotic films because he considered eroticism a fundamental key to human expression and, above all, to telling the story of women.²

His final years

On 18 April 2010, Brass was admitted to the neurosurgery ward of the hospital in Vicenza with a cerebral hemorrhage. He recovered over the following months, but according to AGI he never returned behind the camera. He was preparing a 3D film about Caligula, which was never made.¹⁰ Surviving him are Caterina, his second wife since 2017, and his children, Bonifacio and Beatrice. Carla Cipriani, his first wife, whom he had married in 1957, died in 2006.⁶

This article was written by artificial intelligence from the sources cited, without human review. Automatic newsroom by Redazia.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Tinto Brass è morto a 93 anni, addio al maestro del cinema erotico italiano (ma non solo), Sky TG24 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Tinto Brass, director of Caligula and maestro of Euro erotica, dies aged 93, The Guardian · World, 2026-11-04 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. È morto il regista Tinto Brass, aveva 93 anni, La Stampa, 2026-11-04 ↩

4. Cinema in lutto, è morto Tinto Brass: aveva 93 anni, Adnkronos, 2026-11-04 ↩

5. Tinto Brass, tutti i film del regista italiano, maestro del cinema dell’eros. FOTO, Sky TG24 ↩

6. Tinto Brass, Director of the X-Rated ‘Caligula,’ Dies at 93, The Hollywood Reporter, 2026-11-04 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

7. Tinto Brass, intellettuale e “sporcaccione”: le due anime del regista fedele solo a se stesso, la Repubblica, 2026-11-04 ↩

8. Tinto Brass prima di Tinto Brass, Il Post, 2026-11-04 ↩ ↩²

9. È morto Tinto Brass, addio al regista che ha fatto dell’eros un’arte e del fondoschiena femminile un manifesto, Il Fatto Quotidiano, 2026-11-04 ↩

10. Addio Tinto Brass, dal set di Rossellini al sogno di ‘Chiavatar’, agi.it, 2026-11-04 ↩