Costa Gavras

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Costa-Gavras (2015)

Costa-Gavras (born February 12, 1933 in Loutra Iraias , Arcadia , as Konstantínos Gavrás , Greek Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς ) is a Greek- French film director and screenwriter . He became internationally known for his award-winning, politically committed films .

As genre-defining classics , he shot Z (1969), The invisible uprising (1972) and Missing (1982).

Life

Costa-Gavras' father was a government official who was involved in the communist resistance against the German occupiers. In 1945 the family moved to Athens before the father lost his job after the outbreak of the Greek Civil War in 1946.

Costa-Gavras emigrated to France in 1954 after not being able to study in his home country. In 1956 he received French citizenship. He began studying comparative literature at the Sorbonne in Paris , but got to know a large number of high-quality films at the private film institute Cinémathèque française and switched to the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques . There he earned a degree in directing and film production. From 1965 he worked as a director. Most of his films depict a society shaped by political grievances, against which Costa-Gavras takes a stand. From 1982 to 1987 he was director of the Cinémathèque française , and since July 2007 he has been doing this again.

He directed several classics of the political thriller genre : Z ( Oscar for the best foreign language film 1969), which thematizes the background to the establishment of the Greek military dictatorship under the colonel's regime in the 1960s, The Invisible Uprising , which shows the resistance of the Tupamaros against the von the United States-supported military dictatorship in Uruguay , and Missing (German title: Vermiß ), which takes up again the American commitment in favor of a post-fascist regime against the background of the military coup in Chile in 1973 .

In 2002 he filmed the play of the same name by Rolf Hochhuth from 1963 with Der Stellvertreter, the fact-based story of SS man Kurt Gerstein , who tried, for Christian reasons, to mobilize the Catholic Church against the Holocaust , after himself through his scientific Participation in the development of poison gas had become a confidante and, under a burden of conscience, co-responsible for the Holocaust. The film brought Costa-Gavras together with Jean-Claude Grumberg in 2003 a César for the film script. The filmmaker received another César nomination two years later for the satire The Ax , in which José Garcia is seen as an unemployed engineer who tries to kill his competitor on the job market.

Costa-Gavras (2nd from left) with the director of the Berlin International Film Festival Dieter Kosslick (left), and the (cultural-political) representatives of the German party Die Linke : Luc Jochimsen (3rd from left) and Lothar Bisky (right), Berlin 2011

At the 2008 Berlinale , Costa-Gavras was President of the International Jury. In 1990 he was awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his thriller Music Box - The Whole Truth .

On October 9, 2017, Costa-Gavras announced that he wanted to make a film based on the report by former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis entitled Adults in the Room about his experiences on the European political stage. Reading the report made him sad, but also angry at the "violence and indifference of the members of the Eurogroup, especially Germany, towards the drama and the unbearable situation in which the people of Greece live and lived."

In 1968 Costa-Gavras married the former French mannequin Michèle Ray , who made a name for herself as a journalist and film producer. The relationship has three children, including Romain Gavras and Julie Gavras , who, like their father, both managed to gain a foothold in the film business.

Filmography (selection)

Awards (selection)

Web links

Commons : Costa-Gavras  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Costa-Gavra . In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 46/2009 of November 10, 2009 (accessed via Munzinger Online ).
  2. ^ Dieter Krusche, Jürgen Labenski : Reclams film guide. 7th edition, Reclam, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-15-010205-7 , p. 628
  3. ^ Berlinale 2008: International Jury
  4. ^ Costa Gavras: I will make a film based on Adults in the Room . In: Yanis Varoufakis . October 10, 2017 ( yanisvaroufakis.eu [accessed October 10, 2017]).
  5. ^ English language website of the 17th Sofia International Film Festival
  6. ↑ EFA Honors Costa-Gavras . Article dated November 27, 2018, accessed November 27, 2018.
  7. ↑ Director Costa-Gavras to receive Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker award 2019. August 14, 2019, accessed on August 14, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Costa Gavras
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Costa-Gavras, Constantin; Gavrás, Konstantínos (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek director
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Loutra Iraias , Greece