Verteran British film director Roy Ward Baker died on Friday 8 October at the age of 93. One of great directors, his career stretched from working with Alfred Hitchcock on The Lady Vanishes to directing programmes of Minder and The Good Guys. Along the way, he directed classics Morning Departure, A Night to Remember (the best film about the Titanic), Quatermass and the Pit and The Vampire  Lovers. Click here for longer obituary

Arthur Penn died on Tuesday 28 September aged 88. He rocketed to fame with, for the time, extremely violent Bonnie and Clyde and subsequently made classics such as Little Big Man, Alice’s Restaurant, Night Moves; the great westerns, Left Handed Gun and The Missouri Breaks; and the wonderful ensemble piece The Chase. Great with actors, he could also direct great action.

The great French auteur Claude Chabrol has died at the age of 80, emulating his hero Alfred Hitchcock who also died at 80 just over 30 years ago. Chabrol made over 50 films in his long career, many of them thrillers and was awarded a Golden Bear at Berlin in 1959. For more information see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11275980

Artistic director Hannah McGill is stepping down from the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Recruitment will start soon for her successor. Hannah led the programme f0r the 2007 – 2010 editions of the Festival and oversaw its move from the traditional August slot to June. This follows the resignation of festival producer Ginnie Atkinson of January 2010.

Bruno S (Schleinstein) the enigmatic star who received world renown through the films of Werner Herzog died on 11 August 2010. Bruno S came to fame in The Enigma of Kasper Hauser,  perfectly cast as the mysterious adult who arrives with no past and no memory. He subsequently starred in Stroszek that Herzog wrote for him, but subsequently he was involved in little filmmaking. See the obituary in The Guardian