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Home , A Grin Without a Cat, Chris Marker, Le joli mai, Sans Soleil, Statues Also Die, The Last Bolshevik

BAMcinématek presents , a retrospective of the master cine-essayist, Aug 15—28

Featuring the North American theatrical premiere of Level Five in a new restoration, Aug 15—21

The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor for BAM Rose Cinemas and BAMcinématek.

Brooklyn, NY/Jul 10, 2014—From Friday, August 15 through Thursday, August 28, BAMcinématek presents Chris Marker, a retrospective of the late (1921—2012) whom Phillip Lopate dubbed “the one great cine-essayist in film history.” A sui generis cinema poet, French filmmaker and artist Marker used highly personal collages of moving images, photography, and text to explore weighty themes of time, memory, and political upheaval with a playful wit and an agile mind.

Influenced by the Soviet montage style of editing, Marker rejected the label of cinéma vérité in favor of “ciné, ma vérité” (cinema, my truth), crafting witty, digressive, personal movies on a range of favorite subjects: history and memory, travel and Asia, animals, radical politics, filmmaking itself, and ultimately the whole of “what it’s like being on this planet at this particular moment” (, Chicago Reader). Born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve, Marker took his pseudonym from the Magic Marker and remained an enigmatic figure throughout his career, eschewing interviews and photographs, present only and always in his films (and later CD-ROMs, Second Life, and other pioneering multimedia).

Opening the series is the North American theatrical premiere run of Level Five (1996), screening from August 15—21 in a brand new restoration. Developing a video game about the Battle of Okinawa, a programmer (Catherine Belkhodja) becomes increasingly drawn into her work and haunted by her past in this provocative, retro-futuristic reflecting on the traumas of World War II and early internet culture. Rife with cinephilic references from Otto Preminger’s Laura and ’ to a cameo by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, Level Five is also a precursor to Marker’s later fascination with digital worlds and “uses the future as a conduit to the past” (Tom Charity, Time Out London). Level Five is an Icarus Films release.

Marker’s signature work remains the heart-wrenching short La Jetée (1962—Aug 22), a time travel love story told largely in still photographs and remade by as ; it screens with the early short (1950), co-directed with Alain Resnais, a study of African art that incorporates a critique of colonialism that enraged the French censors. Marker’s passport collected many a stamp between Sunday in Peking (1956—Aug 18), A Letter From (1958—Aug 18), and the -set Description of a Struggle (1961—Aug 25), travelogues in which Marker refined his technique of using narration to inflect documentary footage with unexpected notes of poetry or irony; on occasion, he penned the narration for films made by others, including …A Valparaíso (1965—Aug 25), ’ symphony for an impossible Chilean city built on a steep hillside. Marker turned from observer to interlocutor for the frank person-on-the-street interviews of (1962—Aug 17), a snapshot of Parisians’ everyday concerns in a period of political turmoil.

Drawn to Japan by the 1964 Olympics, Marker instead ended up making The Koumiko Mystery (1965—Aug 27), an intimate, -influenced interview with a Japanese girl he met in the crowd; it shows with Matta (1985), the Chilean artist Roberto Matta’s guided tour of one of his exhibitions. If I Had Four Dromedaries (1966—Aug 28) assembles still images from Marker’s travels in collage form, a style

to which he would return in Remembrance of Things to Come (2002—Aug 28), compiled from the arresting, prophetic 1930s—50s photographs of Surrealist chronicler Denise Bellon.

A forceful critique of US involvement in Southeast Asia, (1967—Aug 16) was also an omnibus from New Wave/Left Bank icons, encompassing a self-reflexive interlude from Jean-Luc Godard and a fictional segment from Resnais, as well as contributions by Agnès Varda and William Klein. Marker’s organizational role in that film initiated a political, collaborative phase in his career, in which he sponsored working-class filmmakers’ collectives like SLON and the Medvedkin Group. The Sixth Side of the Pentagon (1967—Aug 26) documented the March on the Pentagon in incongruously gorgeous color; it screens with The Embassy (1973), a dystopic fictional work about activists sequestered inside an embassy that was inspired by Pinochet’s coup in , and Prime Time in the Camps (1993), a dispatch from a Bosnian refugee camp. The Battle of the Ten Million (1970—Aug 19) was Marker’s second and more ambivalent look at Castro’s Cuba, and Be Seeing You (1968—Aug 20) conducted Le Joli Mai-esque interviews with striking textile workers in Besançon; it screens with Class of Struggle (1969), a SLON companion piece in which workers picked up cameras to rebut Marker’s film, and 2084 (1984), the director’s perversely futuristic take on a labor centennial.

The epic, three-hour capstone to this phase of Marker’s work, (1977—Aug 24) fashioned newsreels, outtakes, and other found footage into a sweeping examination of the collapse of the New Left. Mediated through complex alter egos—a letter writer and his recipient—the Japan-centric (1982—Aug 23) is the most accessible and most revealing of Marker’s Proustian reveries, ruminating upon various obsessions from Vertigo to video games. “His quintessential film…an optimistic version of Blade Runner” (J. Hoberman).

As Marker’s animated cat Guillaume became his playful avatar in a curious world, he collected short films of actual animals—elephants and owls, bullfights and zoos—to create Bestiary (Aug 27), which screens with Les hommes de la baleine (1956) and Three Cheers for the Whale (1972), a pair of tributes to the marine mammal (and its hunters). Marker’s portraits of fellow filmmakers included One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich (1999—Aug 25), which visited on the set of his final film, The Sacrifice, and on his deathbed; and The Train Rolls On (1971—Aug 25), a look at the forgotten cine- train, a proletarian film studio on rails fostered by Soviet director Alexander Medvedkin. Marker expanded his scrutiny of Medvedkin into (1993—Aug 24), a biographical tribute that broadens into a survey of both the beginning and the end of the Soviet Union, which collapsed in the year of Medvedkin’s death.

Press screenings to be announced.

After premiering in Brooklyn, Icarus Films’ new restoration of Level Five will tour theaters nationwide including Los Angeles (Downtown Independent, Aug 16—21), Seattle (Grand Illusion Cinema, Aug 22— 28), Austin (Austin Film Society, Sep 10), Boston (Museum of Fine Arts, Sep 18—27), Chicago (Chicago Filmmakers, Sep 26—30), Columbus (The Wexner Center for the Arts, Nov 19), and more theaters to be announced.

For press information, please contact:

Michael Lieberman / Film Presence at 646.415.9158 / [email protected] Lisa Thomas at 718.724.8023 / [email protected] Hannah Thomas at 718.724.8002 / [email protected]

Level Five An Icarus Films release | 1996 | 106min | In French with English subtitles | Color | New DCP restoration

Chris Marker Schedule

Fri, Aug 15 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30pm: Level Five

Sat, Aug 16 2, 7pm: Far From Vietnam 4:30, 9:30pm: Level Five

Sun, Aug 17 4:30pm: Le Joli Mai 2, 8pm: Level Five

Mon, Aug 18 4:30, 9pm: Level Five 7pm: A Letter From Siberia + Sunday in Peking

Tue, Aug 19 4:30, 9pm: Level Five 7pm: The Battle of the Ten Million

Wed, Aug 20 4:30, 9pm: Level Five 7pm: Be Seeing You + Class of Struggle + 2084

Thu, Aug 21 4:30, 7, 9:30pm: Level Five

Fri, Aug 22 5, 6:30, 8, 9:30pm: La Jetée + Statues Also Die

Sat, Aug 23 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30pm: Sans Soleil

Sun, Aug 24 2, 8:30pm: The Last Bolshevik 4:30pm: A Grin Without a Cat

Mon, Aug 25 7:30pm: Description of a Struggle + Valparaíso 9:15pm: One day in the Life of Andrei Aresenevich + The Train Rolls On

Tue, Aug 26 7:30, 9:15pm: Prime Time in the Camps + The Sixth Side of the Pentagon + The Embassy

Wed, Aug 27 7:30pm: Bestiary + Les homes de la baleine + Three Cheers for the Whale 9pm: The Koumiko Mystery + Matta

Thu, Aug 28 7, 9:15pm: Remembrance of Things to Come + If I Had Four Dromedaries

Film Descriptions Films directed by Chris Marker unless otherwise noted. All films in French with English subtitles unless otherwise noted.

2084 (1984) 10min Marker commemorates the centenary of the French workers’ rights movement with this cyber-punk sci-fi short set another 100 years into the future. Digital. Screens with Be Seeing You and Class of Struggle. Wed, Aug 20 at 7pm

The Battle of the Ten Million (1970) 58min In the wake of ’s grandiose call to his people to produce a record-breaking harvest of 10 million tons of sugar cane, Marker traveled to Cuba to report on the state of the country for Belgian television. The result is this clear-eyed, sobering look at the effects that the Communist revolution had on the country—as well as a tribute to the spirit and determination of the Cuban farmers. 16mm. Tue, Aug 19 at 7pm

Be Seeing You (1968) 39min Directed by Chris Marker, Mario Marret. A 1967 worker’s strike at a textile plant in Besançon presages the rising anti-capitalist sentiment in France that would explode in full force a year later. Digital. Screens with Class of Struggle and 2084. Wed, Aug 20 at 7pm

Bestiary 17min This collection of five short-shorts features a trip to an owl aviary, an elephant dancing to Stravinsky’s “Tango,” and, of course, Marker’s beloved feline alter-ego, Guillaume-en-Egypte. Digital. Screens with Les hommes de la baleine and Three Cheers for the Whale. Wed, Aug 27 at 7:30pm

Class of Struggle (1969) 37min Directed by the Medvedkin Group. Upon learning that textile workers were unhappy with the portrayal in I’ll Be Seeing You, Marker furnished them with filmmaking equipment and basic technical know-how. The result is “one of the finest examples of the politically engaged French documentary cinema of the late sixties” (). Digital. Screens with Be Seeing You and 2084. Wed, Aug 20 at 7pm

Description of a Struggle (1960) 51min Marker’s report from the then only 12-year-old nation of Israel views the country as a collection of signs, “invoking the need for an x-ray vision that can penetrate and decipher the physical and historical landscape” (Catherine Lupton). Digital. Screens with …A Valparaíso. Mon, Aug 25 at 7:30pm

The Embassy (1973) 21min Shot on Super-8, this boldly confrontational fictional work stages a violent political overthrow and chronicles the chaotic fallout with blistering intensity. Digital. Screens with Prime Time in the Camps and The Sixth Side of the Pentagon. Tue, Aug 26 at 7:30, 9:15pm

Far From Vietnam (1967) 115min Directed by Joris Ivens, William Klein, , Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, and Alain Resnais. With Anne Bellec, Karen Blanguernon, Bernard Fresson. Marker was the driving force behind this blistering statement of opposition to America’s invasion of Vietnam. Seven of Europe’s leading filmmakers mixed found footage, interviews, agitprop, and fictional tableaux (by Godard and Resnais) in this film said “could be both the most eloquent and rankling protest film ever made.” DCP. Sat, Aug 16 at 2, 7pm

A Grin Without a Cat (1977) 180min Marker’s epic consideration of the rise and fall of leftist revolutions across the globe—which he calls “scenes from the Third World War”—brings together everyone and everything from Che Guevara and Mao Tse-tung to the Black Panthers and into one visually intoxicating cinematic collage. Laced with lyrical touches, A Grin Without a Cat represents the Marxist Marker’s highly personal explication of the meaning, legacy, and failures of the New Left. 35mm. Sun, Aug 24 at 4:30pm

Les hommes de la baleine (1956) 28min Directed by Mario Ruspoli. Marker wrote the commentary for this thrilling documentary on whale hunting in the Azores, about which Eric Rohmer said “makes us admire man, nature, and, upon leaving, cinema, which sings the greatest of both so well.” Digital. Screens with Bestiary and Three Cheers for the Whale. Wed, Aug 27 at 7:30pm

If I Had Four Dromedaries (1966) 49min Admired by both Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, Marker’s rumination on the meaning of the still image comprises more than 800 pictures shot in 26 countries. Digital blu ray. Screens with Remembrance of Things to Come. Thu, Aug 28 at 7, 9:15pm

La Jetée (1962) 28min With Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich. One of Marker’s rare purely fictional works, this self-described “photo-roman” is a haunting science-fiction love story set in a post-apocalyptic future and told almost entirely in still images—until one breathtakingly exquisite moment. Radical, brilliant, and hugely influential, La Jetée is “miraculous, as if one was seeing and feeling in an instant the revolution by which still pictures became cinema” (The New York Times). 35mm. Screens with Statues Also Die. Fri, Aug 22 at 5, 6:30, 8, 9:30pm

Le Joli Mai (1962) 145min Directed by Chris Marker, . Following the Algerian War in the spring of 1962, Marker and cinematographer Pierre Lhomme took to the streets of Paris to collect the thoughts of an assortment of city dwellers: a seamstress who fashions costumes for cats, a priest-turned-labor activist, and an Algerian youth struggling in the face of racism. The resulting landmark of cinéma vérité—or, as Marker preferred, “ciné, ma vérité”—is both a captivating portrait of a city and a slyly barbed political statement. DCP. Sun, Aug 17 at 4:30pm

The Koumiko Mystery (1965) 54min Shot during the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, this entrancing essay film is a portrait of both a beguiling woman, whom Marker meets by chance, and the city itself, captured in a rush of neon and pop-culture ephemera. Digital. Screens with Matta. Wed, Aug 27 at 9pm

The Last Bolshevik (1993) 116min Marker uses this tribute to Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Medvedkin, his friend and a lifelong Marxist, as a launching point to explore the whole of 20th-century Russian history and communism. The result is “one of the key works of our time… Eloquent and mordantly witty in its poetic writing, beautiful and often painterly in its images… as moving and as provocative in many respects as Sans Soleil” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader). Digital. Sun, Aug 24 at 2, 8:30pm

A Letter From Siberia (1958) 62min One of Marker’s earliest essay films is a pioneering blend of travelogue, animation, and frequently witty musings on the landscape and mythology of Siberia. Digital blu ray. Screens with Sunday in Peking. Mon, Aug 18 at 7pm

Level Five (1996) 106min With Catherine Belkhodja, Nagisa Oshima, Kenji Tokitsu. Marker’s shock-to-the-senses mind-melter concerns a woman (Belkhodja) haunted by the loss of her lover while working on programming a video game about World War II’s Battle of Okinawa. Melding retro- futuristic sci-fi imagery, references to American film noir, and reflections on traumas in Japanese history

into a visually and philosophically provocative puzzle, Level Five is a hallucinatory visual essay on memory, tragedy, and early internet culture. New DCP restoration! In French, Japanese, and English with English subtitles. An Icarus Films release. Fri, Aug 15 at 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30pm Sat, Aug 16 at 4:30, 9:30pm Sun, Aug 17 at 2, 8pm Mon, Aug 18—Wed, Aug 20 at 4:30, 9pm Thu, Aug 21 at 4:30, 7, 9:30pm

Matta (1985) 17min Chilean surrealist Roberto Matta enthusiastically guides Marker through his dreamscape-like paintings and ideas about art in this insightful profile of a seminal artist. DCP. Screens with The Koumiko Mystery. Wed, Aug 27 at 9pm

One Day in the Life of Andrei Aresenevich (1999) 55min This incredibly poignant and perceptive portrait of Andrei Tarkovsky—which includes footage of the revered director completing his last film and on his deathbed—is “the most sustained and heartfelt tribute one filmmaker has paid another” (J. Hoberman). DCP. Screens with The Train Rolls On. Mon, Aug 25 at 9:15pm

Prime Time in the Camps (1993) 28min A group of Bosnian War refugees run a makeshift television station in Slovenia, compiling their own version of the news from pirated TV signals. DCP. Screens with The Sixth Side of the Pentagon and The Embassy. Tue, Aug 26 at 7:30, 9:15pm

Remembrance of Things to Come (2002) 42min Directed by Chris Marker, Yannick Bellon. This dazzlingly discursive profile of photographer Denise Bellon uses hundreds of her photographs to illuminate her life, while touching on everything from the history of surrealism to gypsies to World War II. Digital. Screens with If I Had Four Dromedaries. Thu, Aug 28 at 7, 9:15pm

Sans Soleil (1982) 100min This sublime essay film journeys across time and space—from a cat temple in Tokyo to the streets of Guinea-Bissau to the San Francisco of Hitchcock’s Vertigo—as an unseen narrator reads aloud letters sent to her by a fictional globetrotting cameraman. One of the towering achievements of Marker’s career, Sans Soleil is at once a mesmerizing travelogue and a profound and poetic rumination on life, death, and consciousness. 35mm. Sat, Aug 23 at 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30pm

The Sixth Side of the Pentagon (1967) 26min Marker’s explosive transmission from the October 1967 march on the Pentagon documents a key moment in American activism, when over 100,000 people gathered to protest the . Digital. Screens with Prime Time in the Camps and The Embassy. Tue, Aug 26 at 7:30, 9:15pm

Statues Also Die (1950) 30min Directed by Chris Marker, Alain Resnais. “When men have died they enter history. When statues have died they enter art.” Banned for several years by the French government, Marker and Alain Resnais’ remarkable film essay explores the devastating effects of colonialism via its impact on African art. 35mm. Screens with La Jetée. Courtesy of Institut Francais. Fri, Aug 22 at 5, 6:30, 8, 9:30pm

Sunday in Peking (1956) 22min

A key work in the development of Marker’s trademark style, this short documentary offers a rare glimpse inside China under Mao, accompanied by the director’s own droll voiceover. 16mm. Screens with A Letter From Siberia. Courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.” Mon, Aug 18 at 7pm

Three Cheers for the Whale (1972) 17min Directed by Chris Marker, Mario Ruspoli. Marker and Italian co-director Mario Ruspoli explore man’s relationship to the much-mythologized mammal—including their slaughter—in this essay film, which carries an impassioned ecological message. Digital. Screens with Bestiary and Les hommes de la baleine. Wed, Aug 27 at 7:30pm

The Train Rolls On (1971) 32min Marker pays homage to one of his favorite filmmakers, Aleksandr Medvedkin (subject of The Last Bolshevik), and his “cine train,” a traveling film studio that ventured to the farthest reaches of the Soviet Union to document the lives of ordinary people. 16mm. Screens with One Day in the Life of Andrei Aresenevich. Courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.” Mon, Aug 25 at 9:15pm

…A Valparaíso (1965) 28min Directed by Joris Ivens. Marker penned the lyrical voiceover text for Ivens’ beautifully photographed paean to the Chilean city of Valparaíso—its people and their traditions, its vertiginous geography, and its tumultuous history. 35mm. Screens with Description of a Struggle. Mon, Aug 25 at 7:30pm

About BAMcinématek The four-screen BAM Rose Cinemas (BRC) opened in 1998 to offer Brooklyn audiences alternative and independent films that might not play in the borough otherwise, making BAM the only performing arts center in the country with two mainstage theaters and a multiplex cinema. In July 1999, beginning with a series celebrating the work of Spike Lee, BAMcinématek was born as Brooklyn’s only daily, year-round repertory film program. BAMcinématek presents new and rarely seen contemporary films, classics, work by local artists, and festivals of films from around the world, often with special appearances by directors, actors, and other guests. BAMcinématek has not only presented major retrospectives by major filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Manoel de Oliveira, Shohei Imamura, Vincente Minnelli (winning a National Film Critics’ Circle Award prize for the retrospective), Kaneto Shindo, Luchino Visconti, and William Friedkin, but it has also introduced New York audiences to contemporary artists such as Pedro Costa and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In addition, BAMcinématek programmed the first US retrospectives of directors Arnaud Desplechin, Nicolas Winding Refn, Hong Sang-soo, and, most recently, Andrzej Zulawski. From 2006 to 2008, BAMcinématek partnered with the Sundance Institute and in June 2009 launched BAMcinemaFest, a 16-day festival of new independent films and repertory favorites with 15 NY feature film premieres; the sixth annual BAMcinemaFest runs from June 18—29, 2014.

Credits

The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor of BAM Rose Cinemas and BAMcinématek.

Steinberg Screen at the BAM Harvey Theater is made possible by The Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust.

Pepsi is the official beverage of BAM.

Brooklyn Brewery is the preferred beer of BAMcinématek.

BAM Rose Cinemas are named in recognition of a major gift in honor of Jonathan F.P. and Diana Calthorpe Rose. BAM Rose Cinemas would also like to acknowledge the generous support of The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Estate of Richard B. Fisher, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Brooklyn Delegation of the New York City

Council, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Bloomberg, and Time Warner Inc. Additional support for BAMcinématek is provided by the Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation, The Grodzins Fund, The Liman Foundation, the Frederick Loewe Foundation, and Summit Rock Advisors.

BAMcinématek is programmed by Nellie Killian and David Reilly with assistance from Jesse Trussell. Additional programming by Ryan Werner.

Special thanks to: Livia Bloom/Icarus Films Additional thanks to: Laurence Berbon/Tamasa International; Brian Belovarac & Laura Coxson/Janus Films; David Callahan & Elena Rossi-Snook/New York Public Library; Jasmina Sijercic /ISKRA; Eric Liknaitzky/Contemporary Films UK; Florence Almozini & Romain Rancurel/Cultural Service of the French Embassy; Suzanne Diop/Presence Africaine Editions; Jonathan Howell/New Yorker Films; Carolyn Lazard & Rebecca Cleman/Electronic Arts Intermix; La Sofra; Jake Perlin.

General Information

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, and BAMcafé are located in the Peter Jay Sharp building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell Places). Both locations house Greenlight Bookstore at BAM kiosks. BAM Fisher, located at 321 Ashland Place, is the newest addition to the BAM campus and houses the Judith and Alan Fishman Space and Rita K. Hillman Studio. BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn’s only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. BAMcafé, operated by Great Performances, offers a bar menu and dinner entrées prior to BAM Howard Gilman Opera House evening performances. BAMcafé also features an eclectic mix of spoken word and live music for BAMcafé Live on Friday and Saturday nights with a bar menu available starting at 6pm.

Subway: 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B to Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center (2, 3, 4, 5 to Nevins St for Harvey Theater) D, N, R to Pacific Street; G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Avenue Train: Long Island Railroad to Atlantic Terminal – Barclays Center Bus: B25, B26, B41, B45, B52, B63, B67 all stop within three blocks of BAM Car: Commercial parking lots are located adjacent to BAM

For ticket information, call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100, or visit BAM.org.