Z
Z
France, Algeria, 1969, DCP, Colour, 86’
French, Russian, English; Turkish & English Subtitled
8 June Wednesday - 19:00
SYNOPSIS
In this Academy Award winner—loosely based on the 1963 assassination of Greek left-wing activist Gregoris Lambrakis— a prominent politician and doctor is killed, after giving a public speech, in what appears to be a traffic accident. But given the political climate, the death of such a prominent activist raises troubling questions. An investigation is launched to try to dispute claims of a police conspir- acy, but a postmortem examination suggests that the ruling party was behind his death. And a tenacious magistrate is determined not to let them get away with it.
The film will be screened in a restored digital copy created in 2014 by KG Productions with the support of CNC and is part of the “Motherland, I See You” initiative.
Director: Costa Gavras
Screenplay: Costa-Gavras
Ben Barzman, Jorge Semprun (Vassilis Vassilikos’un
Albert Cossery)
Director of Photography: Raoul Coutard
Kurgu Françoise Bonnot
Music: Mikis Theodorakis
Cast: Yves Montand
Irene Pappas
Jean-Louis Trintignant
Francois Périer
Jacques Perrin
Producer: Jacques Perrin
Ahmed Rachedi
Production: Reggane Films
AWARDS
Cannes FF Best Actor, Jury Prize 1969 New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Film, Best Director 1970 Golden Globes Best Foreign Language Film 1970 Academy Awards Best Film Editing, Best Foreign Language Film 1970
COSTA-GAVRAS
Costa-Gavras is a renowned Greek-French film director and producer who is known for making films with overt political themes. During the World War II, his father, a tax official in Athens, worked for the left wing resistance movement and became marked as a communist. Later with the defeat of the communists in the civil war, he was jailed. It not only affected the family financially, but closed the door for higher studies for young Gavras. Consequently, he was forced to move to France, where he graduated from Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Paris. Thereafter, he started working as assistant to various reputed directors and had his directorial debut in mid-1960s with a French thriller film called ‘Compartiment tueurs’. However, his later films began to carry an overt political message; most significant of them being ‘Z’, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and earned Gavras a nomination for best director, as well as ’État de Siège’, ‘Missing’, ‘Hamma K’ etc. He also showed his prowess in directing comedy with ’État de Siège’. Although most of his movies were made in French, starting with “Missing” (1982) several were made also in English.
