Coming Soon
RED MAY: STATE OF SIEGE
1972
Director
Costa-Gavras
Starring
Yves Montand
Renato Salvatori
O. E. Hasse
Jacques Weber
Runtime
121 minutes
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Presented in association with RED MAY and hosted by Stuart Schrader, Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and Director of the Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, and Colonialism.
Costa-Gavras puts the United States’ involvement in Latin American politics under the microscope in his novelistic thriller STATE OF SIEGE. An urban guerrilla group, outraged at the counterinsurgency and torture training clandestinely organized by the CIA in their country (unnamed in the film), abducts a U.S. official (Yves Montand) to bargain for the release of political prisoners; soon the kidnapping becomes a media sensation while spiralling into violence. Cowritten by Franco Solinas, writer of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS and A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL among several dozen other radical classics, the electrifying STATE OF SIEGE piercingly critiques the American government for supporting foreign dictatorships, while also asking difficult questions about the efficacy of radical violent acts to oppose such regimes.
Costa-Gavras puts the United States’ involvement in Latin American politics under the microscope in his novelistic thriller STATE OF SIEGE. An urban guerrilla group, outraged at the counterinsurgency and torture training clandestinely organized by the CIA in their country (unnamed in the film), abducts a U.S. official (Yves Montand) to bargain for the release of political prisoners; soon the kidnapping becomes a media sensation while spiralling into violence. Cowritten by Franco Solinas, writer of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS and A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL among several dozen other radical classics, the electrifying STATE OF SIEGE piercingly critiques the American government for supporting foreign dictatorships, while also asking difficult questions about the efficacy of radical violent acts to oppose such regimes.