Oscar-nominated director and activist Lourdes Portillo dies at 80

Mexican filmmaker and activist Lourdes Portillo has passed away at her San Francisco on April 20, her friends confirmed.

According to them she had a peaceful death with her three sons and her younger sister around.

Born on November 11, 1943 in Mexico's Chihuahua, Portillo with her parents and four siblings migrated to Los Angeles.

The filmmaker who blends art with activism earlier had said since she grew up in San Francisco, with a sizable number of Latin American immigrants and certain activism around it, she began speaking against the injustices meted against them. She said things took shape in a form of protest.

The filmmaker, whose documentary feature Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo was nominated for the Oscars, said she likes cinema as a tool for its utility as both a documentary and as a feature.

With her primary focus on racial crimes against Latin American, Portillo started making films helping her friend shoot a documentary. She produced her first film After the Earthquake (Despues del Terremoto) in 1979.

Honouring Portillo, The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures houses a gallery devoted to her life and career, as a part of its Limited Series and Spotlights.

Her other works include Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead, The Devil Never Sleeps and Señorita Extraviada or Missing Young Woman.