Costa-Gavras honored in Cannes

Acclaimed French-Greek filmmaker Costa-Gavras received a standing ovation at an official screening of a restored version of his 1969 “Z” at the Cannes Film Festival late on Monday.

Greek Alternate Minister for Culture Nikos Xydakis, who attended Monday’s screening, commented that the tribute was also an “honor for Greece, as well as for France and Europe, rewarding a kind of cinema which is not only a form of art, but a medium shaping consciences throughout European democracies.”

Costa-Gavras was awarded the French festival’s Palme d’Or for “Missing” in 1982, after “Z” had earned the Jury Prize in 1969.

Meanwhile, this year Greek cinema is represented at the international festival’s main competition section by Yorgos Lanthimos’s English language movie “The Lobster.”