Chris Marker

91 years 2012

France

Biography

Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve, better known as Chris Marker (France, 29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012), was a French writer, poet, activist, critic, photographer, traveler, journalist, film essayist, multimedia artist, and documentary filmmaker.

He began his career as part of the French Rive Gauche group—parallel to but distinct from the Nouvelle Vague—with which he would later share certain themes and collaborators. Marker is credited with developing the subjective documentary and is considered a pioneer of collective cinema in France. His films are known for their poetic, essayistic, and often experimental qualities, blending a reflective voice with a fascination for memory, art, war, politics, culture, and nature. Over six decades of work, he observed the world with meticulous curiosity, irony, and compassion, continually experimenting with new forms of image manipulation and montage.

He was also famously elusive. For many years, few people knew what Chris Marker looked like—he disliked being photographed, and no confirmed portraits were publicly available. He often amused himself by giving contradictory accounts of his life in the rare interviews he granted. As Philippe Dubois observed, “Chris Marker is, in a way, the most celebrated of the unknown filmmakers.” His official website adds: “Rather than a man without qualities, he is a man without biography.”

Marker also worked under numerous pseudonyms, including Hayao Yamaneko, Jacopo Berenzini, Kosinki, Michel Krasna, Sandor Krasna, and Guillaume-en-Égypte (his feline avatar), though his best-known identity remains Chris Marker.

Among his most significant works are La Jetée (1962), Sans Soleil (1983), Far from Vietnam (1967), A Grin Without a Cat (1977), A.K. (1985), Level Five (1997), and One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich (1999). He also explored interactive and digital media with the CD-ROM Immemory (1997), maintained a website titled Gorgomancy, a YouTube channel called Kosinki, and created a virtual gallery, Ouvroir, within the online world Second Life.

Title	Year	Job
The End of the World Seen by the Angel Gabriel	1947	Writer
Olympia 52	1952	Writer
Statues Also Die	1953	Writer
Sunday in Peking	1956	Writer
Django Reinhardt	1957	Screenplay
The Mystery of Workshop 15	1957	Writer
Letter from Siberia	1957	Writer
Broadway by Light	1958	Writer
The Sea and the Days	1958	Writer
Des Hommes Dans Le Ciel	1958	Writer
Les hommes de la baleine	1958	Writer
America as Seen by a Frenchman	1960	Writer
Description of a Struggle	1960	Writer
¡Cuba Sí!	1961	Writer
¡Cuba Sí!	1961	Screenplay
La Jetée	1962	Screenplay
The Lovely Month of May	1963	Writer
Valparaiso	1964	Screenplay
The Koumiko Mystery	1965	Writer
The Forbidden Volcano	1966	Writer
The Forbidden Volcano	1966	Screenplay
If I Had Four Dromedaries	1966	Writer
Far from Vietnam	1967	Writer
Far from Vietnam	1967	Producer
Cinétracts	1968	Writer
The Sixth Side of the Pentagon	1968	Producer
Report on Brazil: Torture	1969	Writer
Report on Brazil: Carlos Marighella	1970	Writer
The Train Rolls On	1971	Writer
Three Cheers for the Whale	1972	Writer
Kashima Paradise	1973	Writer
The Embassy	1973	Writer
The Battle of Chile: Part II	1976	Producer
A Grin Without a Cat	1977	Writer
The Battle of Chile: Part III	1979	Producer
Junkopia	1981	Writer
Junkopia	1981	Original Music Composer
Sans Soleil	1983	Writer
2084: Video Clip for the Trade Unions' Reflection and Pleasure	1984	Writer
A. K.	1985	Writer
Tokyo Days	1988	Writer
Détour Ceausescu	1990	Writer
Berlin 1990	1990	Writer
Theory of Sets	1991	Producer
The Last Bolshevik	1993	Writer
Three Haiku Videos	1994	Producer
Three Haiku Videos	1994	Writer
Blue Helmet	1995	Writer
Level Five	1997	Writer
Level Five	1997	Original Music Composer
One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich	1999	Writer
Remembrance of Things to Come	2001	Writer
The Case of the Grinning Cat	2006	Writer
Guillaume Movie	2008	Writer
Metrotopia	2008	Writer
Ouvroir the Movie	2010	Writer
Overnight	2011	Writer
Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke	2012	Writer

Chris Marker

Biography

Acting (21 movies)

Directing (80 movies)