Costa-Gavras

Costa-Gavras

Birth : 1933-02-12, Loutra-Iraias, Greece

History

Konstantinos Gavras (born 12 February 1933), known professionally as Costa-Gavras, is a Greek filmmaker, who lives and works in France. He is best known for directing films with overt political themes, most famously the fast-paced thriller “Z” (1969). Most of his movies were made in French, though starting with “Missing” (1982), several were made in English.

Profile

Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras

Movies

Film, the Living Record of our Memory
Self
Why are we still able, today, to view images that were captured over 125 years ago? As we enter the digital age, audiovisual heritage seems to be a sure and obvious fact. However, much of cinema and our filmed history has been lost forever. Archivists, technicians and filmmakers from different parts of the world explain what audiovisual preservation is and why it is necessary. The documentary is a tribute to all these professionals and their important work.
Romy: 40 ans après, ultimes confidences
Self
To honour the 40th anniversary of her death, multiple personalities share their feelings and thoughts about the life and career of the fabulous and bold actress Romy Schneider. Among them, Alain Delon, icon of French cinema and Romy's first great love, reads her the love letter which he wrote her forty years ago, the day after she passed away.
Armin Mueller-Stahl - Ein Gaukler in Hollywood
The Méliès Mystery
Self
A documentary that details the process of restoring 270 of the 520 lost films of pioneering director Georges Méliès, all orchestrated by a Franco-American collaboration between Lobster Films, the National Film Center, and the Library of Congress.
Citizen Rosi
Self
The narrative wanders through Rosi’s films, not in the order they were shot but following the chronology of the historical facts they deal with. The documentary therefore not only narrates Rosi’s work, but also portrays half a century of Italian history.
Searching for Mr. Rugoff
Self
The feature documentary Searching for Mr. Rugoff is the story of Donald Rugoff, who was the crazy genius behind Cinema 5, the mid-century theater chain and film distribution company. Rugoff was a difficult (some would say impossible) person but was also the man who kicked art films into the mainstream with outrageous marketing schemes and pure bluster. Rugoff's impact on cinema culture in the United States is inestimable, and his influence on the art film business-from the studio classics divisions to the independent film movement to the rise of the Weinsteins-is undeniable. Yet, mysteriously, Rugoff has become a virtually forgotten figure. The story is told through the eyes of former employee Ira Deutchman, who sets out to find the truth about the man who had such a major impact on his life, and to understand how such an important figure could have disappeared so completely.
Adults in the Room
Editor
A universal theme: a story of people trapped in an inhuman network of power. The brutal circle of the Eurogroup meetings, who impose on Greece the dictatorship of austerity, where humanity and compassion are utterly disregarded. A claustrophobic trap with no way out, exerting pressures on the protagonists which finally divide them.
Adults in the Room
Screenplay
A universal theme: a story of people trapped in an inhuman network of power. The brutal circle of the Eurogroup meetings, who impose on Greece the dictatorship of austerity, where humanity and compassion are utterly disregarded. A claustrophobic trap with no way out, exerting pressures on the protagonists which finally divide them.
Adults in the Room
Writer
A universal theme: a story of people trapped in an inhuman network of power. The brutal circle of the Eurogroup meetings, who impose on Greece the dictatorship of austerity, where humanity and compassion are utterly disregarded. A claustrophobic trap with no way out, exerting pressures on the protagonists which finally divide them.
Adults in the Room
Director
A universal theme: a story of people trapped in an inhuman network of power. The brutal circle of the Eurogroup meetings, who impose on Greece the dictatorship of austerity, where humanity and compassion are utterly disregarded. A claustrophobic trap with no way out, exerting pressures on the protagonists which finally divide them.
The Legend of the Ugly King
Self
Director Hüseyin Tabak explores the legacy of Yilmaz Güney — political dissident, convicted murderer, and visionary Kurdish filmmaker — who directed the 1982 Palme d'Or–winning Yol from inside prison and died in exile just two years later.
A Sore Spot
Self
By approaching the financial system and its contradictions, the film raises questions about one of the main discourses of the financial authorities: that we can not spend more than we collect. Through several interviews, it gives an overview of how capital can influence politics and governments.
I Still Hide to Smoke
Producer
Α tragi-comedy about 9 women of different ages and various backgrounds that gather in an Algerian hammam to talk about their lives.
Yves Montand, l'ombre au tableau
Self
Jean Gabin, une âme française
Self
Martin Scorsese Par Martin Scorsese
Self
Cinéma Jacques Perrin
Self
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
Self - Filmmaker
The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.
Henri Langlois vu par...
Director
Thirteen filmmakers talk about Henri Langlois and their relationship with him.
Henri Langlois vu par...
Self
Thirteen filmmakers talk about Henri Langlois and their relationship with him.
Looking for Athènes
Self
What Is Cinema?
Self
Using the words and ideas of great filmmakers, from archival interviews with Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Bresson to new interviews with Mike Leigh, David Lynch, and Jonas Mekas, Oscar-winning filmmaker Chuck Workman shows what these filmmakers and others do that can't be expressed in words - but only in cinema.
Un voyageur
Self
18 years after his last film, (The Troubles We've Seen), Marcel Ophuls emerges from retirement as one of our last masters, the most corrosive, the funniest as well. And the most forceful. The director of The Sorrow and the Pity shares with us stories of his exceptionally rich life in this light-hearted yet bitter escapade though the century and the movies. Son of the great Max Ophuls, he is generous in his admiration. We also meet Jeanne Moreau, Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Lubitsch, Otto Preminger, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick and of course François Truffaut. There are no great filmmakers without a memory, so here is the memory shop of Marcel Ophuls.
Affection to the People
Self
A documentary about cinema censorship during the dictatorship in Greece (1967- 1974), based on never-before-seen state archives. The film includes clips of films which were either censored or banned, newsreels of that era, interviews with famous directors and also secret documents from the reports of the Censorship Committee that are made public for the first time, portraying a revealing picture of the system’s control mechanisms and providing a fresco of that time.
Capital
Screenplay
The head of a giant European investment bank desperately clings to power when an American hedge fund company tries to buy them out.
Capital
Director
The head of a giant European investment bank desperately clings to power when an American hedge fund company tries to buy them out.
Jean-Louis Trintignant, pourquoi que je vis
Self
The Extraordinary Voyage
Self - Filmmaker
An account of the extraordinary life of film pioneer Georges Méliès (1861-1938) and the amazing story of the copy in color of his masterpiece “A Trip to the Moon” (1902), unexpectedly found in Spain and restored thanks to the heroic efforts of a group of true cinema lovers.
Burke & Hare
French Family
Two 19th-century opportunists become serial killers so that they can maintain their profitable business supplying cadavers to an anatomist.
They Saw Inferno
Self
A wonderful documentary that sheds additional light on the fascinating project ‘Inferno’ was, as well as how those who were involved with it reacted to it during the shooting process. A riveting adjunct to the main feature, offering a glut of interviews with various people associated with the production, and presenting quite a bit more production data, as well as some unseen footage from Clouzot's shoot.
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno
Self - Interviewee
In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot's production of L'Enfer came to a halt. Despite huge expectations, major studio backing and an unlimited budget, after three weeks the production collapsed. This documentary presents Inferno's incredible expressionistic original rushes, screen tests, and on-location footage, whilst also reconstructing Clouzot's original vision, and shedding light on the ill-fated endeavor through interviews, dramatizations of unfilmed scenes, and Clouzot's own notes.
Eden Is West
Producer
Desperate to break free from the poverty of his homeland, Elias boards a ramshackle people-smuggling trawler to France. But when the boat is raided by police, Elias leaps into the ocean, eventually finding himself washed up on a Mediterranean beach resort called Eden. So begins Elias odyssesy across Western Europe to Paris, where wondrous promise, helpful new friends and perilous dangers await him every step of the way.
Eden Is West
Writer
Desperate to break free from the poverty of his homeland, Elias boards a ramshackle people-smuggling trawler to France. But when the boat is raided by police, Elias leaps into the ocean, eventually finding himself washed up on a Mediterranean beach resort called Eden. So begins Elias odyssesy across Western Europe to Paris, where wondrous promise, helpful new friends and perilous dangers await him every step of the way.
Eden Is West
Director
Desperate to break free from the poverty of his homeland, Elias boards a ramshackle people-smuggling trawler to France. But when the boat is raided by police, Elias leaps into the ocean, eventually finding himself washed up on a Mediterranean beach resort called Eden. So begins Elias odyssesy across Western Europe to Paris, where wondrous promise, helpful new friends and perilous dangers await him every step of the way.
Crítico
Self
Seventy critics and filmmakers discuss cinema around the conflict between the artist and the observer, the creator and the critic. Between 1998 and 2007, Kléber Mendonça Filho recorded testimonies about this relationship in Brazil, the United States and Europe, based on his experience as a critic.
The Colonel
Producer
A "Reformed Colonel" is found dead in Paris, a couple of decades after Algeria's struggle for independence was won from France. Lieutenant Galois is assigned the investigation of this murder. She receives the diary of Lieutenent Guy Rossi who served under The Colonel in Algeria in 1956, and has been reported as missing in action since 1957. The revelations found in Rossi's diary go far beyond The Colonel's actions in Algeria, and give an insight on how dirty Algeria's War for Independence really was.
The Colonel
Story
A "Reformed Colonel" is found dead in Paris, a couple of decades after Algeria's struggle for independence was won from France. Lieutenant Galois is assigned the investigation of this murder. She receives the diary of Lieutenent Guy Rossi who served under The Colonel in Algeria in 1956, and has been reported as missing in action since 1957. The revelations found in Rossi's diary go far beyond The Colonel's actions in Algeria, and give an insight on how dirty Algeria's War for Independence really was.
The Ax
Screenplay
A chemist loses his job to outsourcing. Two years later and still jobless, he hits on a solution: to genuinely eliminate his competition.
The Ax
Director
A chemist loses his job to outsourcing. Two years later and still jobless, he hits on a solution: to genuinely eliminate his competition.
Chaplin Today: 'The Great Dictator'
Self
A short documentary about the making of "The Great Dictator."
Romy Schneider, étrange étrangère
Self
Star at 17 years with the series of Sissi, Romy Schneider leaves Austria and glory for the love of Alain Delon. From Luchino Visconti to Otto Preminger, through Zulawski and Costa Gravas, she turned with the greatest. The directors interview those who knew her, who loved her, go back to the filming locations, make archive images speak for themselves... and try to detect the part of mystery that Romy Schneider conceals for ever.
Amen.
Screenplay
Kurt Gerstein—a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS—is horrified by what he sees in the death camps. he is then shocked to learn that the process he used to purify water for his troops by using Zyklon-B, is now used to kill people in gas chambers.
Amen.
Director
Kurt Gerstein—a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS—is horrified by what he sees in the death camps. he is then shocked to learn that the process he used to purify water for his troops by using Zyklon-B, is now used to kill people in gas chambers.
Entangling Shadows
Self
Documentary that celebrates 100 years of cinema in Latin America and talks about the origins and the development of cinema in this subcontinent. Its structure is based in 12 short films directed by various Latin American directors. These are: 1) "Los inicios", Iván Trujillo 2) "Cuando comenzamos a hablar", María Novaro 3) "Jugando en serio", Jacobo Morales 4) "De cuerpo presente [Las espirales perpetuas del placer y el poder] Cine Mexicano [1931- 1997]", Marcela Fernández Violante 5) "Cuando quisimos ser adultos", Edmundo Aray and David Rodríguez 6) "Cinema Novo", Orlando Senna 7) "Memorias de una isla, Juan Carlos Tabío 8) "Un grito, 24 cuadros por segundo", Julio García-Espinosa 9) "El día de la independencia", Federico García 10) "¿Sólo las formas permanecen?", Fernando Birri and Pablo Rodríguez Gauregui 11) "Todo final es un principio", Andrés Marriquín.
Mad City
Director
A misguided museum guard who loses his job and then tries to get it back at gunpoint is thrown into the fierce world of ratings-driven TV gone mad.
The Stupids
Gas Station Attendant
An incredibly dull-witted family unknowingly stumble upon an illegal weapons deal while on the trail of their "stolen" garbage.
Lumière and Company
Director
40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes.
Concerning Nice
Director
Anthology of short films about the French city of Nice, by various directors. A homage to Jean Vigo and his "À propos de Nice" from 1930.
Et avec la Lumière et la Mort sans cesse
Director
The Little Apocalypse
Director
In this cynical comedy, an renowned, out-of-work, unpublished “underground” writer from formerly Communist Poland is driven to unusually desperate measures in order to get his work published. Stan has been living in the attic apartment of his ex-wife’s home, which he shares with a journalist friend. One day, he has an accident which convinces his ex-wife and her current husband that he's suicidal, and they hastily contact a media representative to see if some sort of publicity can't be arranged so that Stan’s work can be published and they can benefit, if not from the money, then from their association with him. The organization they contact says that they will be happy to publish his writings, if he will commit suicide live, on television, in St. Peter’s square, while the Pope is delivering an address.
Against Oblivion
Director
Contre l'Oubli (Against Oblivion) is a compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.
Rush - Voyage à Moscou
Lui-même
A document of Perestroika, to be viewed as (nearly) unedited rushes of a voyage to Moscow, preserved by compatriot Costa-Gavras. Says Émilie Cauquy of the French Cinémathèque, "Astonishing unpublished travel diary, shot by Chris Marker in analog video on the occasion of a screening of L'Aveu in Moscow in 1990 [...] Armed with his camcorder, Marker films and records the comments, takes on the role of contemporary capital according to this unique ethnographic method that he has perfected".
Music Box
Director
A lawyer defends her father accused of war crimes, but there is more to the case than she suspects.
Betrayed
Director
An FBI agent posing as a combine driver becomes romantically involved with a Midwest farmer who lives a double life as a white supremacist.
Family Council
Screenplay
French rocker Johnny Halliday stars as a professional thief just released from jail. He returns to stealing to support his family. After several successful thefts, he decides to include his under-aged kid into the "family business".
Family Council
Director
French rocker Johnny Halliday stars as a professional thief just released from jail. He returns to stealing to support his family. After several successful thefts, he decides to include his under-aged kid into the "family business".
Spies Like Us
Tadzhik Highway Patrolman
Two bumbling government employees think they are U.S. spies, only to discover that they are actually decoys for nuclear war.
Tea in the Harem
Producer
The story of two youths – one Algerian, one French – who become juvenile delinquents in a Paris suburb.
Hanna K.
Writer
Israeli attorney Hanna Kaufman has her beliefs challenged when she is appointed to the defense of Selim Bakri. Kaufman, who was born in the United States to survivors of the Holocaust, has always accepted Israel's right to exist. But she bears witness to some of the costs of its sovereignty when she meets Bakri, a dispossessed Palestinian man facing serious criminal charges who wants the same thing as his supposed enemies: to reclaim his family home.
Hanna K.
Director
Israeli attorney Hanna Kaufman has her beliefs challenged when she is appointed to the defense of Selim Bakri. Kaufman, who was born in the United States to survivors of the Holocaust, has always accepted Israel's right to exist. But she bears witness to some of the costs of its sovereignty when she meets Bakri, a dispossessed Palestinian man facing serious criminal charges who wants the same thing as his supposed enemies: to reclaim his family home.
Missing
Writer
Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.
Missing
Director
Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.
Womanlight
Writer
Having both suffered extreme losses, a man and a woman try to form a relationship.
Womanlight
Director
Having both suffered extreme losses, a man and a woman try to form a relationship.
Madame Rosa
Le docteur Ramon
Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He's a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act.
Mr. Klein
Co-Writer
Paris, France, 1942, during the Nazi occupation. Robert Klein, a successful art dealer who benefits from the misfortunes of those who are ruthlessly persecuted, discovers by chance that there is another Robert Klein, apparently a Jewish man; someone with whom he could be mistakenly identified, something dangerous in such harsh times.
Special Section
Producer
In occupied France during the WWII, a German officer is murdered. The collaborationist Vichy government decides to pin the murder on six petty criminals. Loyal judges are called in to convict them as quickly as possible.
Special Section
Writer
In occupied France during the WWII, a German officer is murdered. The collaborationist Vichy government decides to pin the murder on six petty criminals. Loyal judges are called in to convict them as quickly as possible.
Special Section
Director
In occupied France during the WWII, a German officer is murdered. The collaborationist Vichy government decides to pin the murder on six petty criminals. Loyal judges are called in to convict them as quickly as possible.
Les Deux mémoires
Self
The two memories
State of Siege
Scenario Writer
Using the interrogation of a US counterinsurgency agent as a backdrop, the film explores the consequences of the struggle between Uruguay's government and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas.
State of Siege
Director
Using the interrogation of a US counterinsurgency agent as a backdrop, the film explores the consequences of the struggle between Uruguay's government and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas.
You Speak of Prague: The Second Trial of Artur London
Self - Interviewee
Artur London was arrested in 1951 in a Stalinist purge, imprisoned and tortured for two years and forced to confess in the Slansky Trial, one of the last Stalinist "show trials" in Eastern Europe. The documentary explores some of the reasons for the controversy aroused by Costa-Gavras' The Confession, which had been accused of being anti-communist, and it highlights the political importance of filmmaking which, by its nature, is a fiction intended for the general public.
The Confession
Director
The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement by his blackmailers.
Z
Writer
Amidst a heated political climate, the opposition leader is killed in what appears to be a traffic accident. When a magistrate finds evidence of a government cover-up, witnesses start to get targeted. A thinly-fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963, Z captures the outrage about the military junta that ruled Greece at the time.
Z
Director
Amidst a heated political climate, the opposition leader is killed in what appears to be a traffic accident. When a magistrate finds evidence of a government cover-up, witnesses start to get targeted. A thinly-fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963, Z captures the outrage about the military junta that ruled Greece at the time.
Shock Troops
Writer
A French resistance group frees twelve captured soldiers from a German prison camp, but apparently there is an additional prisoner among them who is suspected of being an enemy spy.
Shock Troops
Director
A French resistance group frees twelve captured soldiers from a German prison camp, but apparently there is an additional prisoner among them who is suspected of being an enemy spy.
The Sleeping Car Murder
Writer
Six people travel by train overnight from Marseilles to Paris. When the train arrives at its destination, one of the passengers, a girl, is found dead in a sleeping berth. The police led by Inspector Grazzi investigate the other five passengers, suspecting that one of them was responsible. However, as the investigation is stepped up, the other passengers start turning up dead. It is then up to the last remaining two to solve the case, before they become the next victims.
The Sleeping Car Murder
Director
Six people travel by train overnight from Marseilles to Paris. When the train arrives at its destination, one of the passengers, a girl, is found dead in a sleeping berth. The police led by Inspector Grazzi investigate the other five passengers, suspecting that one of them was responsible. However, as the investigation is stepped up, the other passengers start turning up dead. It is then up to the last remaining two to solve the case, before they become the next victims.
Joy House
Assistant Director
A small-time con man on the run from the gangster-husband of his girlfriend hides out in a strange, brooding mansion run by two mysterious women, where he finds himself trapped in deception between the two women.
The Day and the Hour
Assistant Director
It's the spring of 1944 and Therese is in a hurry to get back to Paris. The trains aren't running from the village where she has gone to visit her father's grave and to fill two suitcases with food. Some British and American planes have been shot down and the Germans want to know where the pilots are hiding. An acquaintance has clearance to drive to Paris with a truckload of goats. After she is in the truck Therese discovers that two British pilots and an American pilot are back there with the goats. She must get the men on a train to Paris and to a safe house there, where there is no room for the American. Can she leave him at the Metro station trying to figure out the map?
A Monkey in Winter
Assistant Director
The story of a man who has stopped drinking- and then dreaming- and who thanks to a young man who tries to forget a lost love in alcohol will turn drunk again during an exciting night.
Les Ratés
Director
A 1958 French language short film written and directed by Costa-Gavras, starring Guy Mairesse, Paniaras and Jean Patrick.
Les Ratés
Screenplay
A 1958 French language short film written and directed by Costa-Gavras, starring Guy Mairesse, Paniaras and Jean Patrick.
Les Ratés
Writer
A 1958 French language short film written and directed by Costa-Gavras, starring Guy Mairesse, Paniaras and Jean Patrick.
The Ax
Producer
A remake of the 2005 film with the same name. After being unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition.