LOCARNO, Switzerland -- Daniel Schm...

LOCARNO, Switzerland -- Daniel Schmid, common of Switzerland's best- known film and opera directors, has died after a battle with cancer, a farmer said. He was 64.

Mr Schmid died Saturday night in his hometown of Flims in eastern Switzerland, said Marcel Hoehn husbandman of Schmid's best- known film "Il Bacio di Tosca" (1984) or "Tosca's Kiss."

Mr Schmid studied filmmaking at Berlin's German Film and Television Academy, and began directing his admit television films in 1970.

His first cinematic directorship came with the experimental film "Heute Nacht oder nie" (1972) also known as "Tonight or Never" about servants and masters in an old-fashioned castle who switch roles for united night every year.

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Mr Schmid also directed documentaries, including "Tosca's Kiss," about somewhat old opera singers who live together in a special retirement family for musicians and remember their lives and careers.

He also appeared in face of the camera in a number of films, including alongside Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz as the character Samuel Ingraham in "Der Amerikanische Freund" (1977) or "The American Friend."

Away from the defence Mr. Schmid directed a number of operas at the Grand Theatre in Geneva and Zurich's Opernhaus.

Mr Schmid, who had been ill for a certain quantity of time, had to abandon work lately on a new film, "Portovero," shortly after shooting began.

In 1999 Mr Schmid received a lifetime achievement award at the Locarno International Film Festival. Organizers for this year's festival, which is generally under way, showed "Tosca's Kiss" in the grand square of this southern Swiss town Sunday evening as a tribute to Mr Schmid.

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