Thessaloniki day 4 with Costa-Gavras

Monday started out with a talk by Costa-Gavras, who was a surprise visitor at the all-day conference of Film Archivists and European Cinemateques. In private Mr. Gavras told me that he has a new film project in the works to be entitled "The Eden of the West" (not to be confused with "East of Eden"). This will probably turn out to be a Greek-French co-production (as was his 1971 masterpeice "Z") and will deal with "current social problems".
At eleven AM the "master class" of hot Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, convened in "Warehouse No. One" in the waterfront complex which houses most festival offices and facilities.
This turned out to be a fascinating event before an SRO crowd in which Cuaron revealed that he is first and foremost a Human Being and, secondarily, a man who makes unusual films about the Human Condition. He also shot "Harry Potter III" and spoke at length about his two year involvement with this uncharacteristic for him Blockbuster project. Most telling were his comments on the "disease of National Identity" (i.e., Nationalism in film)
Alex Deleon