 After the death of Franco and change to a democratic government, he served as Minister of Culture in Spain's socialist government from 1988 to 1991.He was a screenwriter for two successive films by the Greek director Costa-Gavras, "Z" (1969) and "The Confession" (1970), which dealt with the theme of persecution by governments.For his work on the films "The War Is Over" (1966) and "Z" (1969) Semprún was nominated for the Academy Award.