Costa-Gavras’s children were his greatest production; weaned on the classics, schooled in the arthouse. The renowned Greek director forbade trash entertainment and would instead treat his offspring to the best of world cinema: Bergman and Kurosawa, masterpiece after masterpiece. Never mind that the kids were barely out of short trousers and struggled to read the subtitles that scrolled across the screen. In the end, no surprise, it became a borderline ordeal.
“Kids build themselves in opposition to something,” says Romain Gavras, the film-maker’s youngest son. “I watched Tarkovsky way too young. All the masterpieces, way too young. My dad fed them to me from the age of seven. So my rebellion at the age of 12 or 13 was to kick against all of that. I said I hated Tarkovsky and that my favourite film was Die Hard.”
