Constantin Costa-Gavras

N. Rica Schiff/SAGA/Archive Photos

Constantin Costa-Gavras
The films of French director Constantin Costa-Gavras often showcase his left-wing political views. The political thrillers Z (1969) and
Missing (1982) were awarded prizes at the Cannes Film Festival—the Jury Prize and the Palm d’Or, respectively.

(1933- )

French motion-picture director, internationally renowned for his political thrillers based
on historical events. Born Konstantinos Gravos in Klivia, Greece, to a Greek mother and
a Russian father, Costa-Gavras moved to France at the age of 18 to study at the
University of Paris, where he graduated with a degree in literature three years later. He
then studied filmmaking at the prestigious Institut des Hautes Etudes
Cinématographiques in Paris, and he became a naturalized French citizen in 1956. He
worked as an assistant to several esteemed French directors, including René Clair, René
Clement, and Jacques Demy, before directing his first motion picture in 1965,
Compartiment tueurs (The Sleeping Car Murders), a murder mystery.

In 1969 Costa-Gavras came to international prominence with his film Z, a thriller that
portrays entrenched corruption in the Greek military regime of the late 1960s (see
Greece: The Colonel's Coup). The first of Costa-Gavras's political films, Z won the Jury
Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969. Costa-Gavras directed three more political
thrillers in rapid succession: L'Aveu (The Confession, 1970); Etat de siege (State of
Siege, 1973); and Section speciale (Special Section, 1975), for which he won the award
for best director at the Cannes Film Festival in 1975. His next critical success did not
come until 1982, with the release of his film Missing, based on historical events, about an
American writer killed in the turmoil of the 1973 military coup d'etat in Chile (see Chile:
Pinochet Government). Missing was Costa-Gavras's first motion picture made for an
American film studio and it won the Palm d'Or award for best picture at the 1982 Cannes
Film Festival. Costa-Gavras's other films include Music Box (1990) and La petite
apocalypse (The Little Apocalypse, 1993).