Maselli was famous for combining his political passion with most-often female-centred dramas.
"With great pain I must communicate the news of the death, which happened a short while ago...," Acerbi said.
"Italian cinema and culture have lost a maestro and a great director, and the Left (has lost) a militant intellectual and an example of rigour and coherence.”
Born in Rome on December 9, 1930, Maselli graduated from the National Film School in 1949 and began his career as assistant director for Luigi Chiarini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti.
With Visconti's help and encouragement, Maselli got his start directing his first feature film, Abandoned, which competed at the 16th Venice Film Festival in 1955.
One of his most popular films was 1964’s Time of Indifference, adapted from Alberto Moravia’s novel. It starred Paulette Godard, Claudia Cardinale, Rod Steiger and Shelley Winters and focused on members of an upper-crust Rome family reacting to a financial crisis that is undermining their social status.
In the 1980s, Maselli dedicated himself to more intimate films, generally focused on women, such as A Tale of Love, for which he won the Grand Jury Prize at the 43rd Venice Film Festival, and where Valeria Golino was awarded with her first Volpi Cup for Best Actress.
Later on he made The Secret (1990) and Dawn (1991), both starring Nastasja Kinski. The Secret, was entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival.
Maselli is survived by his journalist wife, Stefaia Brai.
