Allan Francovich; Filmmaker Made Documentary on CIA

Allan Francovich, 56, a documentary filmmaker best known for his film examining the Central Intelligence Agency. Francovich, who studied film at UC Berkeley, made the controversial work called “On Company Business: A Documentary History of the Central Intelligence Agency” in 1980. The film, termed “disturbing” in a 1983 Times review when it was circulated to theaters, has since been televised by PBS. Describing various illicit covert actions by the United States in other countries, the documentary received the International Critics Award at the Berlin Film Festival and the Jury Prize at the Leipzig Film Festival. Francovich’s most recent documentary was “The Maltese Double Cross” in 1994, which focuses on the crash of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland. That film won first prize for documentary at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Other documentaries by Francovich include “San Francisco Good Times,” “Chile in the Heart,” “The Houses Are Full of Smoke,” and “Murder in Mississippi.” A native of New York City, Francovich grew up in the mountains of Bolivia and Peru, where his father was a mining engineer. In addition to earning his master’s degree from UC Berkeley, Francovich also studied at the universities of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, and Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., and the Sorbonne in Paris. On Thursday in Houston of a heart attack.