Ciudad Real (Spain), Jun 21 (IANS/EFE): Spanish film director Miguel Morayta, considered one of the great figures of the golden age of Mexican filmmaking, has died in Mexico. He was 105.

According to what Domingo Ruiz Robidio, a film director and the head of the Spain's Elgranturbinax publishing house, which published several books about Morayta, the film icon died Wednesday.

Morayta, a native of the Spanish town of Ciudad Real who would have turned 106 Aug 14, is considered to be one of the founders of filmmaking in Mexico, where he settled in 1941 after going into exile at the end of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, in which he fought as an officer on the Republican side.

Also a screenwriter, who initially went into exile in France and afterwards came close to dying at the hands of the Nazis after being thrown into a concentration camp, later devoted himself fully to developing his great passion for film.

It was in Mexico that he made his debut as a film director, coming out in 1944 with "Caminito alegre" and ultimately directing 85 films in different genres. He was also a film pioneer in several countries in the Americas, both as an artist as well as a technician, and he worked with recognized figures of the epoch such as Lola Flores, Joselito and Carmen Sevilla.

The last film he directed was "Los amantes frios" in 1977.