RED MAY: STATE OF SIEGE

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.