Luiz Carlos Barreto, a towering figure in Brazilian cinema and a key architect of the influential Cinema Novo movement, has died in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 98. Brazilian President Lula declared three days of national mourning in his honour, describing him as the most important producer in Brazilian cinema over the past 50 years, underlining the scale of his influence on the country's film industry across six decades.

Barreto had been in frail health since a fall in March 2024, and his official cause of death was pneumonia. Born in 1928 in Ceará state, he began his career as a photographer before being drawn into filmmaking by Glauber Rocha, going on to co-found L.C. Barreto Produções Cinematográficas with his wife Lucy in 1963, the longest-running production company in Brazil. Together they produced more than 80 films, including landmark Cinema Novo works such as "Entranced Earth", "Antonio das Mortes" and "How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman", shaping Brazilian cinema well beyond the movement's heyday in the 1960s and 70s.