State of Siege () is a 1972 French-Italian political thriller film directed by Costa-Gavras starring Yves Montand and Renato Salvatori. Summary Yves Montand plays Philip Michael Santore, an official of the United States Agency for International Development in their Office of Public Safety (a U.S. government program within USAID that provided training, assistance, and equipment to the security forces of U.S. allies.) Posted to Uruguay in the early 1970s, Santore is kidnapped by a group of urban guerrillas. The story is based on an actual incident in 1970 when U.S. Embassy official Dan Mitrione was kidnapped and killed. Using Santore's interrogation by his captors as a backdrop, the film explores the often brutal consequences of the struggle between the repressive government of Montevideo and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas. Using death squads, the government decimates the revolutionary group, whose surviving members vote to execute the smugly calculating Santore, who is accused of arranging training in torture and political manipulation. In the finale a replacement U.S. official arrives, watched from the crowd by a defiant and angry survivor of the radical group. Cast Yves Montand as Philip Michael Santore Renato Salvatori as Captain Lopez O.E. Hasse as Carlos Ducas Jacques Weber as Hugo Jean-Luc Bideau as Este Maurice Teynac as Minister of Internal Security Yvette Etiévant as Woman Senator Evangeline Peterson as Mrs. Santore Harald Wolff as Minister of Foreign Affairs Nemesio Antúnez as President Jorge Pacheco Areco Mario Montilles as Assistant Commissioner Fontant André Falcon as Deputy Fabbri Jacques Perrin as Telephone Operator Juan Guzmán Tapia as Journalist (uncredited) Response The film opened to positive reviews from critics and is regarded as one of Costa-Gavras' finest works since the 1969 film Z. While it was released one year later in American theaters, a storm of controversy developed. Many U.S. officials hated the movie and even stated that it was a heap of lies about U.S. involvement in Latin America and other third world countries. In Washington, D.C., it was removed from a special screening at the John F. Kennedy Center, only to be run uncut on a local TV station. Production Cinematography Though the setting of State of Siege is never explicitly named, it clearly takes place in Uruguay, as signage throughout the film refers to Montevideo and the Tupamaros are a major plot element. However, it could not be filmed there due to its political content. Instead, it was filmed