Hungarian Film Director Bela Tarr Dead at 70

Bela Tarr, a film director whose work was marked by long takes and oftentimes bleak imagery, has died at age 70.

The filmmaker's death was announced Tuesday by fellow filmmaker Bence Fliegauf -- who was speaking on behalf of Tarr's family -- on Hungary’s national news agency MTI, Deadline reports.

The European Film Academy wrote Tarr had died after battling "a long and serious illness."

Tarr was born in Pécs, Hungary, in 1955, and he later moved to Budapest. He began his career in film working at the Balázs Béla Stúdió, and he made his directorial debut at the age of 23 with the release of "Family Nest" in 1977.

He garnered further attention for his work on the 1988 feature "Damnation," and received international acclaim for directing the 1994 epic film "Sátántangó," which runs for nearly seven and a half hours.

Tarr's final feature film, "The Turin Horse," was released in 2011, and he subsequently established a film school in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Despite the often bleak tone of the director's work, he personally saw comedy in his films, and he told The Guardian viewers could "laugh a lot" while watching his movies.

Tarr was 70.