Chris Marker

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Guided by the evocative narration of Charlotte Rampling, Nostalgia for the Future is a descent into the labyrinthine world of Chris Marker, the “best-known author of unknown films,” who spent a lifetime concealing himself behind a veil of pseudonyms and images of cats. Moving through a constellation of personal documents and film fragments, an archivist attempts to decode the man through the material traces he left behind. By repurposing and recontextualizing Marker’s own body of work, the film treats his images as “time machines,” transforming the archive into a landscape of living memory. Nostalgia for the Future is a meditation on memory, identity, and the power our past images hold over the futures we imagine.

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Ten years after the death of iconic French filmmaker, Chris Marker. A filmmaker, hoping to rediscover that unique sensibility against the uncertainty of the new century, returns to the places synonymous with those incomparable and unforgettable films-- From the cat cemetery of Sans Soleil, to the mausoleum of The Last Bolshevik; The caves of Level Five to the rooftops of The Case of the Grinning Cat. A biographical portrait of one of the 20th century's greatest and most misunderstood filmmakers.

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A desktop documentary about the online afterlife of the late French filmmaker, Chris Marker.

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Posthumous portrait of Chris Marker, the elusive French filmmaker- essayist, traveller, photographer and cat-lover. Two filmmakers, Jean-Marie Barbe and Arnaud Lambert, propose a chronological journey through his thoughts and cinematographic work: from the cartography of new political utopia in the 1950s, from Siberia to La Habana, to its relentless defeat, starting with Chile; from his review of cinéma-verité to the great television experience in "L'Héritage de la chouette", which traces a journey through classical Greece, organized into twelve words.

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Two friends (and legendary French New Wave filmmakers) meet in real and virtual worlds.

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Agnès Varda travels around the world to meet friends, artists and filmmakers for an expansive view of the global contemporary art scene.

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What was your first desire? What did you long for most? Arielle Dombasle put these questions to a wide circle of famous people.

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Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

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Chris Marker’s portrait of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky documents the director at work on his final film, The Sacrifice, during the last year of his life. Interweaving behind-the-scenes footage with excerpts from Tarkovsky’s earlier works, Marker crafts a moving reflection on the artist’s vision, methods, and enduring legacy.

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Laura, a French programmer, inherits the task of creating a game about the World War II Battle of Okinawa. Her research and interviews with Japanese experts and witnesses prompt her to reflect on life, humanity, and the lasting influence of history and memories.

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A document of Perestroika, to be viewed as (nearly) unedited rushes of a voyage to Moscow, preserved by compatriot Costa-Gavras. Says Émilie Cauquy of the French Cinémathèque, "Astonishing unpublished travel diary, shot by Chris Marker in analog video on the occasion of a screening of L'Aveu in Moscow in 1990 [...] Armed with his camcorder, Marker films and records the comments, takes on the role of contemporary capital according to this unique ethnographic method that he has perfected".

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Chris Marker’s Tokyo Days follows the filmmaker and actress Arielle Dombasle as they wander through Tokyo, beginning with an encounter with a live mannequin in a shop window. Mixing casual observation with playful edits, Marker captures everyday scenes—from subways to markets—in a personal video diary of the city.

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An intimate chronicle of the shooting of Ran (1985), a film directed by the legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.

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German director Wim Wenders tries to explore the Tokyo that was depicted in the films of Yasujiro Ozu and finds a very different city.

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A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

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Filmmaker William Klein documents the Paris student riots that occurred in May of 1968.

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This 1973 French documentary explores the conflict between modern values and material comforts in Japan and the more traditional obligations (giri) and culture which are still the real backbone of the society. Among the topics touched on are the Osaka Expo, battles against pollution, and Japanese leftist movements.

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Chris Marker and François Reichenbach document the massive anti–Vietnam War protest held in Washington, D.C., on October 21, 1967, where more than 100,000 demonstrators gathered at the Lincoln Memorial before marching on the Pentagon. Filmed amid the crowd, the short captures the tension, idealism, and growing radicalism of the American peace movement.

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Koumiko Muraoka, a young Japanese woman born in Manchuria and educated in France, wanders through Tokyo while she reflects on identity, memory, and what it means to be Japanese in a rapidly changing world.

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Candid interviews of ordinary people on the meaning of happiness, an often amorphous and inarticulable notion that evokes more basic and fundamentally egalitarian ideals of self-betterment, prosperity, tolerance, economic opportunity, and freedom.

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This silent film shows the jury voting for Chris Marker, who receives the Louis Lumière award for his film ¡Cuba sí!

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A faceless traveller takes a journey through the barren reaches of a Siberia caught between tradition and modernity, imparting his philosophical musings on its people and places, wildlife and culture.

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A radical re-imagining of French auteur Chris Marker's masterpiece.

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A modern Miami adaptation of the 1962 French short film "La Jetee", the film recounts Luke's (Uncle Luke, legendary rapper from the hip-hop group 2 Live Crew) rise to fame as he changes the face of hip-hop and fights for first amendment rights, and later as he ushers Miami into a golden era of peace and prosperity as Mayor. Everything changes when a nuclear meltdown at Turkey Point Power Plant turns Miami into a radioactive wasteland filled with mutants, and Luke is the only survivor left unscathed.

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Short film about violence in London.

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A tour of Ouvroir, the virtual museum Chris Marker created in the online world Second Life with collaborator Max Moswitzer. Guided by Marker’s cat avatar, Guillaume-en-Égypte, visitors explore a 3D island of galleries, cinemas, and reading rooms inspired by Bioy Casares’s The Invention of Morel. The film documents this digital extension of Marker’s lifelong exploration of memory, art, and technology.

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A brief visual journey through the subways of major world cities. Without narration, Marker captures anonymous gestures, repetitive rhythms, and the unique atmosphere of underground urban spaces. A sensory meditation on modern life, the homogenization of environments, and the quiet beauty of places in transit.

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Cat film by Chris Marker

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Chris Marker's cat and rat.

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Chris Marker’s The Case of the Grinning Cat (Chats perchés) follows the appearance of the yellow M. Chat graffiti across Paris in the early 2000s, using it as a lens to reflect on art, protest, and politics in the post-9/11 era. Blending street imagery with footage of global and local unrest, the film serves as a playful yet pointed companion to Marker’s earlier A Grin Without a Cat.

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A personal history of France, told through photos by French photographer Denise Bellon.

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Chris Marker’s portrait of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky documents the director at work on his final film, The Sacrifice, during the last year of his life. Interweaving behind-the-scenes footage with excerpts from Tarkovsky’s earlier works, Marker crafts a moving reflection on the artist’s vision, methods, and enduring legacy.

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Laura, a French programmer, inherits the task of creating a game about the World War II Battle of Okinawa. Her research and interviews with Japanese experts and witnesses prompt her to reflect on life, humanity, and the lasting influence of history and memories.

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A young man, who served as a peacekeeper in Bosnia and Herzegovina for a few months during the war, recounts his experiences. Throughout the film, we only see his face filmed in close-up, along with a few photos. The interview acts as a strong testimony to the failure of the international community in the Yugoslav crisis.

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A documentary on Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Medvedkin, examining his tumultuous career, the rediscovery of his masterpiece Happiness, and Russia's struggles over the course of the 20th Century.

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A collection of three short “video haikus” by Chris Marker. Yanka / Tchaika observes the Seine beneath a bridge; Owl Gets in Your Eyes features Catherine Belkhodja with an owl superimposed in flight; and Petite Ceinture pays homage to the Lumière brothers by filming empty train tracks along Paris’s disused railway.

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Made entirely on Roger Wagner's HyperStudio software, Chris Marker explores set theory, using Noah's Ark as an example.

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Some months after the fall of the Berlin wall, during the time of federal elections in Germany in 1990, Chris Marker shot this passionate documentary, reflecting the state of the place and its spirit with remarkable acuity.

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After the Romanian Revolution reached its peak during the Christmas Holidays of 1989, Romania’s Communist patriarch and his wife Elena were sentenced to death by a military court and accordingly gunned down. Chris Marker’s short video-collage Détour Ceauşescu documents how the execution was depicted by France’s national TV-channel TF1.

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A 13-part documentary series by Chris Marker examining how ancient Greek ideas continue to shape modern Western thought. Each episode centers on a single Greek word—such as “democracy,” “philosophy,” or “mythology”—through conversations filmed in cities around the world. Combining symposium-style discussions with archival footage and visual motifs of the owl, Marker creates an expansive reflection on the enduring legacy of Greece.

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Chris Marker’s Tokyo Days follows the filmmaker and actress Arielle Dombasle as they wander through Tokyo, beginning with an encounter with a live mannequin in a shop window. Mixing casual observation with playful edits, Marker captures everyday scenes—from subways to markets—in a personal video diary of the city.

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An intimate chronicle of the shooting of Ran (1985), a film directed by the legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.

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Made for the centenary of France’s trade union laws, Chris Marker’s 2084 imagines a future in which a computer looks back on the labor movement of the 20th century. Mixing documentary reflection with speculative fiction, the film envisions contrasting paths for the future of workers and unions.

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A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

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Filmed along the Emeryville Mudflats near San Francisco, Junkopia captures a landscape of sculptural installations made from driftwood and discarded materials. Chris Marker, John Chapman, and Frank Simeone transform these ephemeral artworks—set against highways and the distant city—into a quiet meditation on art, decay, and the modern environment.

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Guzmán’s final installment shifts from covering the actions of Allende’s opponents to those who battled to revive & promote their toppled leader’s vision for a new Chile.

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Chris Marker’s A Grin Without a Cat is an epic political essay tracing the rise and decline of the global left from the 1960s to the 1970s. Through archival footage and commentary, the film examines revolutionary movements in France, Latin America, and beyond, reflecting on the ideals, failures, and fading hopes of a generation.

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After a military coup d'état, political dissidents seek refuge in a foreign embassy. Over the next few days, they are joined by more and more people who are fleeing the military assault: teachers, students, intellectuals, artists, and politicians.

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This 1973 French documentary explores the conflict between modern values and material comforts in Japan and the more traditional obligations (giri) and culture which are still the real backbone of the society. Among the topics touched on are the Osaka Expo, battles against pollution, and Japanese leftist movements.

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Co-directed by Chris Marker and Mario Ruspoli, Three Cheers for the Whale traces humanity’s complex relationship with whales—from reverence to exploitation—culminating in a stark depiction of industrial whaling. Combining archival imagery, commentary, and documentary footage, the film offers both a historical reflection and a call for ecological awareness.

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This half-hour documentary by Chris Marker explores Aleksandr Medvedkin’s 1930s “Cine-Train,” a mobile film studio equipped with cameras, editing rooms, animation stations, and a laboratory. Traveling across the Soviet countryside, the train’s crew documented agricultural and industrial life—from Ukrainian harvests to southern steelworks—while living and working in cramped shared quarters.

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Made shortly after the death of Brazilian revolutionary Carlos Marighella, this documentary reconstructs his life and political struggle through interviews with friends and comrades. It examines his role in the resistance against Brazil’s military dictatorship and his death in a 1969 police ambush.

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On September the 4th, 1969, a group of Brazilian revolutionaries kidnap the U.S. ambassador. In exchange for his release, they demand that the Brazilian authorities publish a manifesto they provide, and release 15 political prisoners.

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Chris Marker and François Reichenbach document the massive anti–Vietnam War protest held in Washington, D.C., on October 21, 1967, where more than 100,000 demonstrators gathered at the Lincoln Memorial before marching on the Pentagon. Filmed amid the crowd, the short captures the tension, idealism, and growing radicalism of the American peace movement.

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A series of 43 documentary shorts, directed (without credit) by several famous French filmmakers and each running between two and four minutes. Each "tract" espouses a leftist political viewpoint through the filmed depiction of real-life events, including workers' strikes and the events of Paris in May '68.

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In seven different parts, Godard, Ivens, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais, and Varda show their sympathy for the North-Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War.

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Composed entirely of still photographs taken by Chris Marker across 26 countries, If I Had Four Dromedaries presents a dialogue between three voices reflecting on the meaning of images and travel. Through this photo-essay form, Marker explores the relationship between still and moving images and the act of seeing itself.

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Set in Zaire, the film follows an expedition exploring the crater of the Niragongo volcano of the Virunga chain, whose eruptions are known for their violence and their massive lava flows.

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