Jorge Semprún

Writer

December 10, 1923 (87 years)

† June 7, 2011

Madrid, Spain

Biography

Jorge Semprún Maura was a Spanish writer and politician. From 1953 to 1962, during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, Semprún lived clandestinely in Spain working as an organizer for the exiled Communist Party of Spain, but was expelled from the party in 1964. After Franco's death and the change to a democratic government, he was Spain's Minister of Culture from 1988 to 1991. He was screenwriter for two successive films by Greek director Costa-Gavras. In 1996 he became the first non-French au…

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.

6.8

The Assassination

Darien, a left-wing police informant, is forced to lure his old friend Sadiel to Paris, allegedly to film a television special about the Third World. Sadiel, the exiled leader of a North African state, is being hunted by the ruthless Colonel Kassar, who will stop at nothing to capture his political rival. Once Sadiel arrives in Paris, Darien realizes he has been manipulated. He tries to turn back the clock, not realizing what or who he’s truly dealing with.

5.9

Stavisky...

Biarritz, 1933. Charm and talent assist small-time swindler Serge Alexandre, alias Stavisky, to bribe his way into the centre of French politics. But when his great scam involving millions is exposed, he brings the government to the verge of collapse and the country to the brink of civil war.

N/A

Ah, c'était ça la vie!

A vision of youth in Western Europe in the 50s, literature, jazz, politics and wars intermingle in their dreams, ideals and their first loves.

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.

7.0

Los desastres de la guerra

The painter Francisco de Goya is witness to the disasters and horrors caused by the bloody resistance of the Spanish people to the French occupation during the Napoleonic wars.

6.5

The War Is Over

On his way from Madrid to Paris, Diego, a chief of the Spanish Communist Party, is arrested at the border for an ID check but manages to flee. When he arrives in Paris, he searches for one of his comrades to prevent him from going to Madrid where he could be arrested.

5.8

A Woman at Her Window

Greece, 1936. An aristocratic woman engages in a series of loveless affairs before finding herself falling for a political activist.

7.2

Special Section

In Nazi-occupied France, a German officer is assassinated. The Germans demand justice, and the Vichy government is quick to capitulate. Unable to apprehend the actual culprits, Minister of Justice Joseph Barthélémy decides the execution of token Frenchmen will suffice, but the problem is finding judges and jurors eager to participate in a sham trial of innocent men. The solution is a Special Section, a court comprised of individuals handpicked for this exact purpose.

4.0

Roads to the South

France, 1975. Jean, an exiled Spanish Communist, is a successful screenwriter who, after a tragic event, struggles with his political commitment, his love for his country, under the boot of General Franco, whose death he and his comrades have waited for years, and his complicated relationship with his son. (A sequel to “The War Is Over,” 1966.)

5.1

Netchayev is Back

Freshly landed in Paris, Daniel Laurençon, who calls himself Netchaïev, who was believed dead five years ago in Gibraltar, warns a commercial center of a bomb attack a few minutes before its completion.

6.0

L'Affaire Dreyfus

In 1894, the French Army discovered the existence of a traitor Alsatian and Jewish, the French officer Alfred Dreyfus makes an ideal culprit. For lack of evidence, the War Ministry creates a damning document Dreyfus overwhelming. Judged and sentenced, Dreyfus is deported to Devil's Island. In 1896, the Army flushed out the real culprit. The truth broke out in 1898 thanks to the mobilization of intellectuals shaken by Zola's "J'accuse!"

6.0

The Sidewalks of Saturn

Hugo Santiago and writers Juan José Saer and Jorge Semprún move back and forth between Paris and the city of Aquilea in a shadowy fable about exile. The frontier between one city and the other begins to blur after Bandoneonist Rodolfo Mederos is visited by his sister, a member of a guerrilla organization.

5.9

Objective: 500 Million

Reichau, a former army captain, is back in France after serving three years in prison for belonging to the OAS (Secret Armed Organization), a dissident paramilitary group during the Algerian War. Marked by his past, he does not believe in the values of his country any more. At a loss to know what to do with his life, he agrees one day to take part in a heist set up by Pierre, a pilot, the very man who gave him away in Oran. The operation, in which Yo, a gorgeous woman, participates, consists in stealing a bag containing 55 million francs during a Paris-Bordeaux flight...

6.0

K

In this French crime film, set during the time of the Gulf War, an elderly German tourist is murdered in Paris by junk dealer Joseph Katz (Pinkas Braun), a friend of Paris detective Sam Bellamy (singer Patrick Bruel). Romantically involved with the victim's daughter Emma Guter (Isabella Ferrari), Bellamy covers up the crime he witnessed. Joseph then mysteriously vanishes, and Bellamy heads for Berlin where the victim's possessions are auctioned. After Bellamy finds the source of the well-hidden traffic in art stolen by Nazis from French Jews, he discovers a Nazi war criminal is blackmailing past associates. Incorporating background from journalist Hector Feliciano's Lost Museum, the film is adapted from Guy Konopnicki's novel, Pas de Kaddish pour Sylberstein (No Kaddish for Sylberstein).

2.0

Le Temps du silence

Manuel passes 18 months at Buchenwald before his return to Paris. He wonders even before his arrival who will have the patience and passion to listen to his narrative. He chooses silence.

6.0

Les Deux mémoires

The Two Memories, “an investigation into Republican and Francoist memories”, in the words of Jorge Semprún, is based on interviews conducted in 1972 in France and Spain, archival footage of the Civil War and newsreels from the Franco period.

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