Seasoned Greek-French auteur Costa-Gavras is currently shooting his 19^th feature, entitled Adults in the Room [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Costa-Gavras
scheda film]. The director, who is returning to the director’s chair seven years after his latest drama, Capital [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], is now adapting Yanis Varoufakis’ best-selling political memoir Adults in the Room: My Battle With Europe's Deep Establishment. Shooting commenced in Athens at the beginning of April and will last 12 weeks, with the cast and crew set to visit Paris, Riga, Brussels, Strasbourg, Frankfurt and London.

In his book, Varoufakis tells of his experiences during his six-month term as Greek Minister of Finance in 2015, a particularly turbulent year. The film will focus on the financial crisis and the negotiations that took place between the Greek government and the rest of the European and international officials during that period. Gavras describes Adults in the Room as “an ancient Greek tragedy set in modern times” and continues: “This is the story of a country and of its people, trapped in a network of power – the vicious cycle of Eurogroup meetings that imposed the dictatorship of austerity upon Greece.” The director also addresses his audience directly by stating: “I have a big challenge ahead of me: not to disappoint you.”

Gavras’ preference is to give the roles to actors according to their characters’ nationalities – hence the leading role of Varoufakis is played by Christos Loulis, while Alexandros Bourdoumis will be stepping into the shoes of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. German thesp Ulrich Tukur, who is teaming up with Gavras for the fourth time (with their latest collaboration being Eden Is West [+leggi anche:
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On the technical side, Gavras will join forces for the first time with acclaimed Greek cinematographer Giorgos Arvanitis, who is well known for his work with Theodoros Angelopoulos and Pantelis Voulgaris, among others. Also, multi-award-winning film composer Alexandre Desplat will handle the music for the film.

Budgeted at €6.85 million, Adults in the Room is a French-Greek co-production by Michèle Ray-Gavras and Alexandre Gavras for KG Productions, with Manos Krezias for Odeon, France 2 Cinéma, Wild Bunch and Canal+. In addition, Kostas Lampropoulos, of View Master Films, is handling the executive production in Greece. It should be noted that the film will be supported by the cash rebate scheme offered by EKOME - National Centre of Audiovisual Media and Communication. According to the schedule provided, Adults in the Room will be released by the end of the year by Wild Bunch, and the international sales are handled by Elle Driver.