"If ever there was a filmmaker to come up with a Theory of Everything, it's Marker."
—Time Out

Born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve on July 29, 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, Chris Marker is a cinematic essayist and audio-visual poet. After the Second World War, Marker began as a writer, publishing his first book in 1949. In the 1950s he turned to documentary filmmaking. Among his classic works from this period are Letter from Siberia, Cuba Si!, Le Joli Mai, and La Jetée. In the '60s and '70s he was actively involved with SLON, a filmmaking collective dedicated to activist production. Marker reemerged to make films under his own name again in 1977 with Le Fond de l'air est rouge (English title: A Grin Without A Cat). Creatively reworking his life as if editing one of his own films, Marker made several films on other filmmakers in the '80s and '90s. Now concentrating on video and computer-controlled imagery, after 50 years of engaged and creative work, Chris Marker is one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers, exemplified by the 2006 release of the English version of his The Case of the Grinning Cat.

First Run/Icarus Films is proud to distribute 9 of Chris Marker's films and his BESTIARY, a collection of five short animal films:

• The Case of the Grinning Cat (2004) - In his newest film, French cinema-essayist Chris Marker reflects on French and international politics, art and culture at the start of the new millennium.
• Remembrance of Things to Come (2001) - Reminiscent of Resnais, Ivens, even Kubrick, but in its deployment of still photographs (as in La Jetée), its theme of history and memory, its subject-skipping montage and rapid shuttle of wit and philosophy it's pure Marker.
• One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich (1999) - Marker’s homage to his friend and colleague, Andrei Tarkovsky. A unique and intimate portrait of the legendary Russian filmmaker.
• Chris Marker's Bestiary (1994) - Five Chris Marker short films devoted to animals collected together and available for the first time!
• The Last Bolshevik (1993) - Marker's tribute to Russian film director Alexander Medvedkin.
• A Grin Without A Cat (1977) - Marker's epic film-essay on the worldwide political wars of the 60's and 70's: Vietnam, Che, May '68, Prague, Chile, and the fate of the New Left.
• The Embassy (New Release) (1973) - In one of Chris Marker's few fiction films, political dissidents seek refuge in a foreign embassy after a military coup d'état in an unidentified country.
• Three Cheers for the Whale (New Release) (1972) - Noted French documentarian Chris Marker chronicles the history of the whale and, in a more general manner, that of all marine mammals, in the process warning of the imminent destruction of the whale threatened by the fishing industry's ongoing slaughter.
• A bientot, j'espere (1968) - Workers at a textile factory on strike in pre-May '68 France, not just for more money, but for a different way of life.
• The Sixth Side of The Pentagon (New Release) (1967) - Chronicle of the 1967 Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam protest march on the Pentagon by documentary essayist Chris Marker.

"Chris Marker, the most poetic and original of documentarists."—Derek Malcolm, The Guardian