Michèle Ray-Gavras

As an independent journalist between 1963 and 1977, Michèle Ray covered struggles in Vietnam and Bolivia for multiple French media.

Between April 1966 and February 1967, while reporting on the Vietnam war, Michèle Ray travelled in South Vietnam among the American GI forces. She then continued to the communist north and was captured by the Vietcong on 17 January 1967. She was liberated on 6 February after falling sick. She brought back a special report published in the Nouvel Observateur, a film that was used in the documentary Far from Vietnam, and she published a book, The Two Shores of Hell.

She traveled to Bolivia in 1967 to report on the capture and death of Che Guevara, publishing an article in Paris Match before being expelled from the country. In 1971, Michèle Ray was covering the Uruguayan general election for French television and radio, when she was kidnapped by the anarchist group OPR-33 and held for 3 days, between 29 November and 3 December before being released. Costa Gavras was in Uruguay at the time, preparing his film State of Siege.