Homage to Chris Marker (1921-2012)

Chris Marker left behind a legacy as a filmmaker, photographer, editor, writer and videographer. He was a traveling filmmaker with a wild camera, capturing the most beautiful "direct cinema" in the history of cinema in Sans Soleil (Sunless); and a filmmaker whose militant work centered on France and its evolution from the early 1960s. Working alongside Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda and Armand Gatti, he enrolled in the post-war school of documentary revival called "the French school of short film." He directed only one fiction film, the best-known photo-novel of science fiction: La Jetée (The Pier).

To pay tribute to this accomplished artist, the French Institute of Budapest and Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival offer a select and varied program. This retrospective includes screenings of eleven films, shorts and features, and a conference at which prominent film historians will discuss the significance of Chris Marker’s contribution to film history, and his legacy today.

The French Institute of Budapest

To understand the legacy of Chris Marker today we need to look into both the past and the future of cinema. Marker's works are multi-level experiments, driven by the desire to expand the possibilities of the visual medium, to explore productive tensions between the still and the moving image, to enter parts of the world which are widely considered inaccessible, and to revise the meaning of authorship and collective work in the arts. His social commitment to a fairer and more just world led him to pursue left-wing utopias across the world; his sharp eye and eloquent pen contributed to the rise of the cinematic essay as genre, playing with the definitions of reality and carving out space for authorial subjectivity in documentary form conventionally defined as objective and authentic. As the twentieth century drew to a close, he became an eager explorer of new, non-linear narrative possibilities brought about by the development of computer technologies. Introducing films from the full span of Marker's prolific life, the program invites you to explore the worldview of an original artist, and the changing identity of filmmaking.

Oksana Sarkisova
Program Curator