The Cohen Media Group has revealed that it plans to add to its Blu-ray catalog two films directed by acclaimed filmmaker Costa-Gavras:
Amen. (2002), starring Ulrich Tukur, Mathieu Kassovitz, Ulrich Mühe, and Sebastian Koch, and
Capital (2012), starring Gad Elmaleh, Gabriel Byrne, Liya Kebede, Hippolyte Girardot, and Natacha Régnier. The two releases are expected to arrive on the U.S. market on June 10th.
Amen.
When newly-commissioned SS Lieutenant Kurt Gerstein (Ulrich Tukur) witnesses the chemical disinfectant he's helped perfect being used to systematically murder interred Jews, he has no choice but to act. The only sympathetic ear Gerstein is able to find is that of a young Father Riccardo (
Amelie's Mathieu Kassovitz), a priest with deep ties to the Vatican. While Riccardo takes on the obstructive Vatican hierarchy, Gerstein must walk a tightrope between documenting and enabling the atrocities his fellow SS officers cold-bloodedly commit. As the two unlikely allies fight to reveal the truth to the Church and the world, they discover that the fates of a man of conscience committing treason for the sake of humanity and a man of God committing heresy to thwart genocide are ultimately the same.
Costa-Gavras reveals the heroism and deceit surrounding the Vatican's response to the Holocaust with both suspenseful urgency and cool detachment, underscoring the disturbing gray areas of character that tolerated the Nazi atrocities that Gerstein and Riccardo beseech the Vatican to condemn. Without sanctimoniousness, the bitter ironies and hollow victories that are at the heart of Amen. incriminate the Nazis, the Church and ultimately humanity itself.
Capital
From legendary Academy Award-winning writer/director Costa-Gavras (
Missing, Z) comes Capital, a fast-paced, darkly comic, suspenseful drama set in the high stakes world of global finance.
When the CEO of France's Phenix Bank collapses on the golf course, Machiavellian young executive Marc Tourneuil (Gad Elmaleh,
Midnight in Paris) is crowned as his replacement. A whirlwind of ruthless ambition, power struggles, greed and deception ensues as Tourneuil's brutal ascent is jeopardized by a hostile takeover attempt from a large American hedge fund led by Dittmar Rigule (Gabriel Byrne,
Vikings, In Treatment), erotic distractions from international supermodel Nassim (Liya Kebede), and adversaries with an agenda for destruction.
Capital is a pointed commentary on how the Darwinian world of contemporary capitalism plays itself out across the global financial stage. Based on the book Le Capital by Stéphane Osmont, the film is directed by Costa-Gavras and written by Costa-Gavras, Jean-Claude Grumberg and Karim Boukercha.