Costa-Gavras: Encounters with History

Costa-Gavras: Encounters with History explores the life and work of the director intertwined with historical and socio-political events, from the early stages of his career: emigrating to France from Greece in 1955 and first studying at the Sorbonne, then focusing on filmmaking at IDHEC, now La Fémis. He became an internationally respected director, first with his Oscar-award winning film Z (1969) and continued with a vast array of films, including his most recent work, Adults in the Room (2019). His films portray the complexities of human nature, relationships challenged by historical and contemporary socio-political issues. In this overview of the director’s films, the authors shed light on his encounters with history from his youth in war-torn Greece to his later films on immigration, unemployment, global capitalistic greed, and the abuse of political and economic power in Europe.

Costa-Gavras’ films have spanned several decades and several continents, to combat unethical laws and injustice, oppression, legal/illegal violence, and torture. Throughout his evolution in the world of cinema for over half a century as director, writer, and producer, Costa-Gavras has told human-interest stories that entertain and inspire, and that help us better understand ourselves and a fragile, fragmented world.

John J. Michalczyk is Professor and Director of Film Studies in the Art, Art History, and Film department of Boston College, USA, and author and/or editor of fourteen books, including works on Ingmar Bergman, as well as on French and Italian filmmakers. More recently he has published Filming the End of the Holocaust (Bloomsbury 2016), Confront! Resistance in Nazi Germany (2005), and Nazi Law: From Nuremberg to Nuremberg (Bloomsbury 2017). Since 1992, he has been a documentary filmmaker, whose works include The Cross and the Star: Jews, Christians and the Holocaust; Nazi Medicine: In the Shadow of the Reich; Creating Harmony: The Displaced Jewish Orchestra from St. Ottilien; Writing on the Wall: Remembering the Berlin Wall; Nazi Law: Legally Blind; and Hitler’s Mein Kampf: Prelude to the Holocaust.

Susan A. Michalczyk is a professor in the Boston College Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, USA. Author, editor, and documentary filmmaker, her main interests are comparative literature, language, art, and film, focus upon the autobiographical narrative/memory experience as it relates to film and literature. She has been a partner with her husband, John J. Michalczyk, in both teaching and film production for over twenty-five years, focusing on issues of social justice and human rights. Co-producer and scriptwriter, her works include Nazi Medicine: In the Shadow of the Reich; Creating Harmony: The Displaced Persons’ Orchestra from St. Ottilien; Killing Silence: Taking on the Mafia in Sicily; Writing on the Wall: Remembering the Berlin Wall; Lou Montgomery: A Legacy Restored; Nazi Law: Legally Blind, Hitler’s Mein Kampf: Prelude to the Holocaust.