By Pamela Ezell / LA Film Fest Guest Blogger

With 21 films over five decades and numerous international awards, Costa-Gavras is a world figure in cinema. He sat down for a conversation with Academy Award-winner Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) and talked about his career as a filmmaker.

Now 80, Costa-Gavras grew up in Greece where his father was sent to prison as a communist. Because of this, even though he had an uncle in the United States – the father of filmmaker Penelope Spheeris – when the time was right for him to leave Greece and go to college, he was barred from emigrating to the U.S. He chose France instead, “where education is free,” and studied literature at the Sorbonne. Then, a friend took him to see Erich von Stroheim’s Greed. “I discovered what cinema could be – like Greek tragedy. I saw a lot of movies. I decided to go to cinema school.”

Costa-Gavras got his start as an assistant director. (“Which means something different in France than it does here,” Boal pointed out. “Yes,” Costa-Gavras agreed. “It’s the director’s right hand.”) In 1965, he made his first film, Compartiment tueurs (The Sleeping Car Murders), based on a book he adapted without first securing the rights. His producer bought the rights after reading Costa-Gavras unauthorized adaptation. “That is good advice to you out there,” said Boals. “Just do it, don’t wait for anyone to give you permission.”

But it was in 1969 when Costa-Gavras burst onto the world stage with his political thriller Z, a fictionalized account of the assassination of Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis. Z was the first film to be nominated for an Academy Award in both the foreign language and best picture categories; it won for foreign language, along with racking up numerous nominations and prizes throughout Europe and the U.S.

Since then, Costa-Gavras has made numerous films with political impact: State of Siege (1972), starring Yves Montand, about the struggle between the repressive government of Uruguay and leftist guerillas; The Music Box (1989), starring Jessica Lange and Armin Mueller-Stahl, about an Hungarian immigrant in the U.S. accused of being a war criminal; Betrayed (1988), starring Debra Winger and Tom Berenger, about Midwestern white supremacists; and the Oscar-, BAFTA-, and Palme d’Or-winning Missing (1982), starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek in Academy Award-winning performances.

Costa-Gavras resists the label of “politician,” even though, as Boal pointed out, his work makes such strong political statements. “As an artist, I don’t want to be a politician,” he said. “Political is your behavior every day. Everyone has power. The way we use power makes people happy or unhappy.”

“Do you believe you have to defend your work, the way a parent is responsible for a child?” asked Boal. “It is a big responsibility,” Costa-Gavras answered. “It’s a necessity for commercial reasons. But we don’t make the movie for us, we make it for the audience.”

“Is there something that all global audiences share?” Boal asked. “All the audiences like to be free – to be happy – to have respect and dignity – to have enough money to have a decent life,” Costa-Gavras answered.

On the topic of casting actors in unconventional roles, as he did with casting Jack Lemmon in Missing and, more recently, by casting the comedic actor Gad Elmaleh to play the CEO of an international bank in Capital, Costa-Gavras said, “Between a director and a major actor is the chance to create a third person. I like to ask an actor to get out of the routine.”

There was discussion about whether or not the world has gotten better or worse over the length of Costa-Gavras’ career. One audience member, also 80, said it had not gotten better. But Costa-Gavras disagreed: “The world has changed,” he said. “More and more, the audience becomes more intelligent. When I was young, you had the Eastern world and the Western world, and everybody was on one side or the other. Today, there’s no side. The world is better,” he said. “It is getting better, but not fast enough.”

It was the audience member who spoke next who had the last word: “Z changed my life,” he said, “because you taught me what evil looks like.” The political is personal indeed.