Costa Gavras

TEHRAN (AIPFF) - Costa-Gavras, ( born 12 February 1933) is a Greek filmmaker, who lives and works in France, best known for films with overt political theme.

TEHRAN (AIPFF) – Costa-Gavras, (born 12 February 1933) is a Greek filmmaker, who lives and works in France, best known for films with overt political theme.

Gavras was born in, Arcadia. His family spent the Second World War in a village in the Peloponnese, and moved to Athens after the war Costa Gavras went to France, where he began his studies of law in 1951.He has won two Academy Awards for his films “Z” and “Missing.”

Other acclaimed films include “State of Siege,” “Amen,” “Music Box,” “The Confession,” “Hanna K.” and “Betrayed.” For nearly five decades, Costa-Gavras has tackled some of the key political issues of the day. “Z” was a drama loosely based on the 1963 assassination of a Greek left-wing activist. “Missing,” his 1982 film starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, told the story of American journalist Charles Horman, who was abducted and killed after General Augusto Pinochet came to power in Chile in a U.S.-backed coup.

Costa Gavras is known for merging controversial political issues with the entertainment value of commercial cinema. Law and justice, oppression, legal/illegal violence, and torture are common subjects in his work, especially relevant to his earlier films. Costa Gavras is an expert of the “statement” picture. In most cases, the targets of Gavras’s work have been right-of-center movements and regimes, including Greek conservatives in and out of the military in Z, and authoritarian governments that ruled much of Latin America during the height of the Cold War, as in State of Siege and Missing.

“Missing” and “State of Siege,” was screened in the 3rd edition of Ammar Intenational Popular Film Festival coincided with the 63rd anniversary of the US-sponsored 1953 coup d’état against the government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq.

The 3rd edition of Ammar International Popular Film Festival was on the 24th of August in Teheran, capital city of Iran.