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 Dub…

Directed

1. La Jetée (1962) — Director
2. Sans Soleil (1983) — Director
3. Statues Also Die (1953) — Director
4. The Astronauts (1959) — Director
5. Junkopia (1981) — Director
6. The Lovely Month of May (1963) — Director
7. A. K. (1985) — Director
8. Letter from Siberia (1957) — Director
9. Level Five (1997) — Director
10. A Grin Without a Cat (1977) — Director
11. Far from Vietnam (1967) — Director
12. Sunday in Peking (1956) — Director
13. The Last Bolshevik (1994) — Director
14. The Embassy (1973) — Director
15. The Case of the Grinning Cat (2006) — Director
16. 2084: Video Clip for the Trade Unions' Reflection and Pleasure (1984) — Director
17. The Sixth Side of the Pentagon (1968) — Director
18. Three Cheers for the Whale (1972) — Director
19. Description of a Struggle (1960) — Director
20. An Owl Is an Owl Is an Owl (1990) — Director
21. Remembrance of Things to Come (2001) — Director
22. One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich (1999) — Director
23. If I Had Four Dromedaries (1966) — Director
24. We Maintain It Is Possible (1973) — Director
25. Eclipse (1999) — Director
26. The Koumiko Mystery (1965) — Director
27. ¡Cuba Sí! (1961) — Director
28. The Train Rolls On (1971) — Director
29. Leila Attacks (2007) — Director
30. Tchaïka (1994) — Director
31. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Singer (1974) — Director
32. Be Seeing You (1968) — Director
33. Tokyo Days (1988) — Director
34. Blue Helmet (1995) — Director
35. Cinétracts (1968) — Director
36. You Speak of Paris: Maspero. Words Have Meaning (1971) — Director
37. Zoo Piece (1990) — Director
38. Berlin 1990 (1990) — Director
39. Cat Listening to Music (1988) — Director
40. You Speak of Prague: The Second Trial of Artur London (1971) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Sans Soleil (1983) — Self (uncredited)
2. The Beaches of Agnès (2008) — Self (archive footage)
3. Tokyo-Ga (1985) — Self (uncredited)
4. The Lovely Month of May (1963) — Self / Interviewer (voice)
5. A. K. (1985) — Self - Narrator (voice)
6. Letter from Siberia (1957) — Stargazer (uncredited)
7. Level Five (1997) — Self (voice) (uncredited)
8. The Sixth Side of the Pentagon (1968)
9. One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich (1999) — Self (voice) (uncredited)
10. The Koumiko Mystery (1965) — Narrator
11. May Days (1978) — Self
12. Tokyo Days (1988) — Self (voice) (uncredited)
13. Agnès Varda: From Here to There (2011) — Self
14. In Chris Marker's Studio (2011) — Self
15. La Traversée du désir (2009) — Self
16. Kashima Paradise (1973) — Narrator (voice)
17. Lumière Award to Chris Marker (1962) — Self
18. The Invention of Chris Marker (2020) — Self
19. Rush - Voyage à Moscou (1990) — Self
20. Ten Lives of a Cat: A Film about Chris Marker (2023) — Kaibyō (archive footage)
21. Chris Marker: Never Explain, Never Complain (2015) — Self (archive footage)
22. Nostalgia for the Future (2026) — Self (Archive footage)
23. L’indispensable (2026) — Photos/Extrait