Acclaimed director Costa-Gavras visits the Consulate General of Greece in New York

On February 10th, the internationally acclaimed director and Academy Award winner Costa-Gavras visited the Consulate General of Greece in New York for a brief meeting and discussion. He was accompanied by the actors Christos Loulis and Alexandros Bourdoumis and the founder of the Hellenic Film Society USA Mr. James DeMetro.

Costas Gavras was invited by the Hellenic Film Society at the Museum of the Moving Image for the screening of two political films which have been created fifty years apart. The first movie is “Z” (1969), winner of the 1969 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. “Z” (meaning 'he is alive' in Greek) is a 1969 Algerian-French epic political thriller based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Vassilis Vassilikos. The film presents a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of democratic Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. The second movie “Adults in the Room” is a 2019 political thriller based on the book of the same name by Yanis Varoufakis about the 2015 Greek bailout.

About Costa-Gavras

He was born in 1933 in Greece but moved permanently to France in 1952, due to his father's Communist Party membership, which made it impossible for young Gavras to attend university in Greece or to be granted a visa to the United States. In 1956, he left his university studies to study film at the French national film school, IDHEC. 1969 was a milestone to his career: “Z” received international accolade and won an Academy Award, while Gavras became a director of international reputation. In 1982, he filmed the political thriller “Missing” an American historical drama starring Jack Lemmon based on the true story of American journalist Charles Horman, who disappeared in the bloody aftermath of the US-backed Chilean coup of 1973. Gavras won an Academy Award for best-adapted screenplay and the film won the 1982 Palme d'Or at Cannes Festival. Lemmon was awarded Best Actor for his performance. Gavras's trademark is stories about political or sociological subjects, that examine general problems in society.

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