French filmmaker Jean-Marie Straub, who along with his wife, the late Danièle Huillet, were known for their politically controversial films died on Sunday, November 19th in Switzerland. He was 89.

In 2006, with his partner Danièle Huillet, he won a Special Lion at the Venice International Film Festival for the film Quei loro incontri.

In a statement, Venice International Film Festival said, “The President, the Director of the Venice International Film Festival, the Board of Directors and La Biennale di Venezia all remember, with great esteem and affection, the French director, screenwriter and producer who passed away on November 19th in Switzerland. He was, with his partner Danièle Huillet (who died in 2006), the protagonist of an extraordinary experimental career in twentieth-century cinema with their original reinterpretations in film of works of literature, theatre, music and painting, translated into forms that broke convention.”

“At the Venice International Film Festival of La Biennale di Venezia, the work of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet was the subject of a personal Retrospective as early as 1975. Their masterpiece Dalla nube alla resistenza, an apologue against tyranny adapted from Cesare Pavese, was presented at the 1979 Venice Film Festival in the section La Notte di Officina. The film Quei loro incontri, in competition at the 2006 Venice Film Festival, won the Special Lion for innovation in the language of cinema. They also participated with a short film in the special project Venezia 70. Future Reloaded for the 70th edition of the Venice Film Festival.”

His final film was Dialogue of Shadows (Dialogue d’ombres), a 2013 French-Swiss short drama film starring Cornelia Geiser and Bertrand Brouder, about a man and a woman who converse about love and the weight of history.