STOCKHOLM, July 30: Legendary Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman, who influenced a generation of film-makers with his often stark works on themes of mortality and sexual torment, died on Monday at the age of 89.

For many movie buffs, Bergman was the greatest of the authorial film-makers of the 1950s and 1960s, outranking even such figures as Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel or Jean-Luc Godard.

The self-taught film-maker and scriptwriter died in the morning at his home on Faro Island in the Baltic Sea, Cissi Elwin, chief executive of the Swedish Film Institute, said.

Earlier this month, Bergman put in a brief appearance at the annual celebration on Faro Island of his half-century career, but remained in a wheelchair and seemed very tired, she said.

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala, Sweden, on July 14, 1918, the second of three children.

Bergman was famed for films such as ‘Wild Strawberries’, ‘Scenes From a Marriage’ and ‘Fanny and Alexander’ — a classic that won four Oscars — and made him an acknowledged master of modern cinema.

‘Fanny and Alexander’, was the director’s last big screen production.—Agencies