Chris Marker

Chris Marker (born Christian-François Bouche-Villeneuve; 1921–2012) was a French film director, photographer, visual artist and multimedia artist. He is one of the most important figures of the essay film and is counted among the so-called “Left Bank” of the French New Wave alongside Alain Resnais and Agnès Varda.

His best-known works include the 28-minute film La Jetée (Czech title Rampa, 1962), composed almost entirely of still photographs, which served as the basis for Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys, and the meditative travelogue essay Sans Soleil (1983). In his later work he also turned to multimedia installation, photography and digital art (the CD-ROM Immemory, 1998).

At the 2nd edition of Fotofestival Uničov (Uničov Photo Festival, 2012), his film La Jetée was screened at Teta gallery as part of a Saturday program that also included a guided tour of the exhibition Tis and a talk on contemporary photography by Blanka Švédová.