Costas-Gavras, shown here talking to Christos Louis playing Varoufakis, who quit as finance minister after failing to reach a deal with the eurozone (Louisa GOULIAMAKI)

Athens (AFP) – Greek-French director Costa-Gavras said Thursday he is filming a screen adaptation of a book by Greece’s firebrand former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on the draconian austerity programme imposed in Greece as it battled its financial crisis.

The book titled “Adults in the Room: My Battle With Europe’s Deep Establishment”, which came out in 2017, chronicles Varoufakis’s fierce campaign to lessen financial burdens imposed on ordinary Greeks. 

The film will cover the first half of 2015, when Varoufakis, then Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s finance minister, took Greece and Europe to the brink with demands that creditors ease reforms imposed under two bailouts agreed since 2010.

Varoufakis stepped down on July 6, 2015, under pressure from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Tsipras then gave in to the lenders, accepting a third international loan underpinned by new austerity measures.

The 85-year-old Costa-Gavras, the pen name of Konstantinos Gravras, was on Thursday seen in central Athens outside the Bank of Greece where Christos Loulis, playing Varoufakis, emerged from a car along with Alexandros Bourdoumis, playing Tsipras. 

Extras playing journalists and a huge crowd flocked around the vehicle.

The project enjoys the financial backing of the Greek government, which is contributing 630,000 euros ($700,000), or about one-third of the cost of filming in Greece.

Costa-Gavras told AFP he would go on to film in Paris, Riga and London and hoped to finish the project by the end of the year. 

Disclaimer: Validity of the above story is for 7 Days from original date of publishing. Source: AFP.