Personal Info
Known For:
Directing
Birthday:
July 29, 1921
Place of Birth:
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France
Social Media
Chris Marker
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.
Known For
Filmography
| Year | Movie | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Ten Lives of a Cat: A Film about Chris Marker | Kaibyō (archive footage) |
| 2020 | The Invention of Chris Marker | Self |
| 2015 | Chris Marker: Never Explain, Never Complain | Self (archive footage) |
| 2011 | Agnès Varda: From Here to There | Self |
| 2011 | In Chris Marker's Studio | Self |
| 2009 | La Traversée du désir | Self |
| 2008 | The Beaches of Agnès | Self (archive footage) |
| 1999 | One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich | Self (voice) (uncredited) |
| 1997 | Level Five | Self (voice) (uncredited) |
| 1990 | Rush - Voyage à Moscou | Self |
| 1988 | Tokyo Days | Self (voice) (uncredited) |
| 1985 | A. K. | Self - Narrator (voice) |
| 1985 | Tokyo-Ga | Self (uncredited) |
| 1983 | Sans Soleil | Self (uncredited) |
| 1978 | May Days | Self |
| 1973 | Kashima Paradise | Narrator (voice) |
| 1968 | The Sixth Side of the Pentagon | |
| 1965 | The Koumiko Mystery | Narrator |
| 1963 | The Lovely Month of May | Self / Interviewer (voice) |
| 1962 | Lumière Award to Chris Marker | Self |
| 1957 | Letter from Siberia | Stargazer (uncredited) |
| Year | TV Show | Role |
|---|