DUSHANBE, November 30, 2015, Asia-Plus -- An iconic figure in Russian cinema, movie director Eldar Ryazanov has died in Moscow age 88, his family has revealed.

Over the past year, Ryazanov was repeatedly hospitalized with reported heart problems.  On November 21, the director once again ended up at a Moscow clinic.  Doctors noted that the star developed shortness of breath.  Medics also found fluid in his lungs and diagnosed him with the pulmonary and cardiac failure.  He was placed on artificial ventilation.

“He is no more,” Ryazanov’s grandson Dmitry Troyanovsky told RIA Novosti early Monday.

Eldar Ryazanov (November 18, 1927 – November 30, 2015) was a Russian film director and screenwriter whose popular comedies, satirizing the daily life of the country, are celebrated throughout the former Soviet Union.

Born in Samara, he graduated with honors from the Soviet State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in 1950 as a film director.

Ryazanov made documentaries for five years, before taking up employment at Mosfilm Studios in 1955.

He was named a People''s Artist of the USSR in 1984, and received the USSR State Prize in 1977.  He won the Nika Award for Best Director in 1991 for the film  Promised Heaven .

Among his most famous films are  Carnival Night  (1955),  Hussar Ballad  (1962),  Beware of the Car  (1966),  The Irony of Fate  (1975),  Office Romance  (1977),  The Garage (1979), and  A Cruel Romance  (1984).  Ryazanov''s main genre was tragicomedy.

Ryazanov leaves behind his wife, a daughter and a grandson from his second marriage.