Michelangelo Antonioni who died on 30 July 2007 aged 94 was an Italian born director regarded as one of the great European filmmakers.

A master of foreign cinema, Mr Antonioni’s films were deliberately slow but ultimately satisfying, capturing the imagination of critics, and for a time, mainstream audiences.

His biggest international hit came with Blow Up, a sexually explicit murder mystery set in the swinging 60s fashion industry and his achievements in Europe regularly coincided with award nominations at popular film festivals such as Cannes.

As “one of cinema's greatest protagonists” he achieved respectability and endearment from his peers throughout his six decades in film and his innovative approach helped to evolve European cinema.

Michelangelo Antonioni was born on 29 September 1912 in Ferrara Italy. After studying Economics at university in Bologna he soon took an interest in film, becoming a film journalist for the fascist magazine ‘Cinema’.

He began making short films throughout the early 1940s developing technical flair before directing his first feature length film Chronicle of a Love in 1950. He followed this with a documentary, The Vanquished, focussing upon the lives of youths in London, Paris and Rome.

His 1960 film The Adventure, proved his first major success catapulting Mr Antonioni into the European cinema spotlight at the 1961 Cannes film festival.

Critics adored the newfound director hoping that his future works would be as good as or even better than The Adventure.

With a height of expectation hanging over him, a decision to make his first English language film was a risk that proved the making of Mr Antonioni as an internationally renowned director.

Backed by the major film studio MGM, he embarked on his biggest challenge yet using the backdrop of 60s London to make Blow Up (1966), a story which delved into the life of a fictional fashion photographer entranced by the swinging 60s.

It was nominated for an Academy Award proving that he had a natural talent for filmmaking that could appeal to the masses.

His first Hollywood film, Zabriskie Point (1970) happened to be a flop; however this did not stop him from pursuing further English language projects that included collaboration with Jack Nicholson on The Passenger (1975) a well received thriller.

Mr Antonioni returned to directing foreign language films throughout much of the 1980s although his career was put on hold after suffering a stroke in 1985. Despite the set back he continued to work in film having already been nominated for the Palme D’or film award at Cannes on five separate occasions between 1960 and 1982.

He received an honorary lifetime achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1995 for his contribution to film and in the same year completed his final full length feature Beyond The Clouds.

His final film release, a short film entitled The Dangerous Thread of Things appeared in 2004 as the still very ill director called time on his long career.

Paying tribute to Mr Antonioni British film critic Kim Newman said: “The films are so beautiful and the people are so gorgeous, you can't help but feel it would be great to be lovelorn and miserable like that."