Costa-Gavras

Director

February 12, 1933 (93 years)

Loutra-Iraias, Greece

Biography

Konstantinos "Kostas" Gavras (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος "Κώστας" Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933), known professionally as Costa-Gavras, is a Greek-French film director, screenwriter, and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for political films, such as the political thriller Z (1969), which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Missing (1982), for which he won the Palme d'Or and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most of his films have been made in French, b…

Filmography

7.8

Z

A prominent politician is murdered during a demonstration. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth, but a tenacious magistrate is determined to not to let them get away with it.

6.3

Mad City

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.

7.2

Music Box

A lawyer defends her father accused of war crimes, but there is more to the case than she suspects.

7.2

Missing

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.

6.1

Betrayed

An FBI agent posing as a combine driver becomes romantically involved with a Midwest farmer who lives a double life as a white supremacist.

6.1

Capital

The head of a giant European investment bank desperately clings to power when an American hedge fund company tries to buy them out.

6.5

Joy House

A small-time con man on the run from his girlfriend's gangster husband hides out in a strange, brooding mansion run by two mysterious women, where he finds himself trapped in deception between the two.

7.0

Amen.

Kurt Gerstein—a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS—is appalled to discover that a poison gas he helped discover is being used to kill Jews. Driven by his conscience to alert the rest of the world, Gerstein teams up with a young Jesuit priest, Riccardo Fontana, but their protestations fall on deaf ears in the Vatican.

7.3

State of Siege

Assigned to South America, US official Philip Michael Santore is employed by a counterinsurgency agency. His position makes him a target for a local band of guerrillas, and, before long, Santore is kidnapped. As a prisoner, he undergoes interrogation, shedding light on the violent situation in the country. Once the insurgents are done with their questioning, they must decide whether Santore lives or dies.

6.9

The Ax

Bruno loved his job as a middle manager at a paper company, but optimistically views being laid off as an opportunity. After two years of searching for a comparable position, optimism turns to desperation. His wife works two jobs, and their marriage slowly deteriorates as their hold on the middle class slips away. Bruno concocts a grimly audacious plan to identify and kill his fellow job applicants so that he is the only qualified person left.

7.4

The Confession

In 1950s communist Czechoslovakia, a government minister, a war veteran long a loyal party man, leads a relatively comfortable life with his wife. However, he soon finds himself under surveillance, then under arrest. Unclear what his offense is, agents for the totalitarian regime interrogate and torture him, aiming to use their unending power to gain a false confession for these supposed crimes against the state.

6.7

Bay of Angels

A bank clerk is drawn into the risky world of a gorgeous gambling addict.

6.5

Adults in the Room

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.

5.8

Womanlight

Having both suffered extreme losses, two disparate souls try to form a relationship for consolation rather than romance.

6.3

Lumière & Company

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.

6.9

The Sleeping Car Murders

Six people travel by overnight train from Marseilles to Paris. When they arrive, one of them, a young woman, is found dead in a sleeping berth. The police, led by Inspector Grazzi, investigate the other five passengers, suspecting that one among them was responsible. However, as the investigation is stepped up, the others start turning up dead. It's up to the remaining two to solve the case, lest they become the next victims.

5.9

Before What Comes After

In a kind of philosophical dialogue, Doctor Augustin Masset and renowned writer Fabrice Toussaint discuss life and death… A whirlwind of encounters in which the doctor is the guide and the writer, his passenger, led to confront his own fears and anxieties.

7.6

A Monkey in Winter

During World War II, an innkeeper vows to abstain from alcohol for the sake of his family. Years later, as they thrive in Normandy, his resolve is tested by a charming advertising professional who loves to drink.

6.2

Hanna K.

Israeli attorney Hanna Kaufman's beliefs are challenged when she's appointed to the defense of Selim Bakri. Kaufman, born in the United States to survivors of the Holocaust, has always accepted Israel's right to exist. However, she bears witness to some of its sovereign costs 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.

6.3

Backfire

A greedy gold smuggler hires a handsome hero to transport a stolen fortune to a new hideout accompanied by the smuggler's sexy girlfriend.