Marker XC: Three Times Thirty: 1967 – 1973
Tribute to Filmmaker Chris Marker at the Exploratorium
7:30 pm Thursday, July 28, 2011

On the occasion of the legendary filmmaker Chris Marker’s ninetieth birthday, the Canyon Falls Observatory – in collaboration with the Cinema Arts Program of the Exploratorium – presents Marker XC: Three Times Thirty: 1967 – 1973 – a free screening of three little-known shorter works by the director, to be held at the Exploratorium’s McBean Theater.

The event is presented by Jonathan Marlow, the former Executive Director of the San Francisco Cinematheque and current Content VP at Fandor, and Liz Keim, Director of the Exploratorium’s Cinema Arts Program, at the McBean Theater.

The program schedule is as follows:

The Sixth Side of the Pentagon (1967, 26 minutes)   directed by Chris Marker & François Reichenbach
Documenting the Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam demonstration on 21-October-1967, Marker and two cameramen capture the assorted actions of the 100,000 protesters in Washington, D.C.

The Embassy (1973, 21 minutes) directed by Chris Marker
An imaginative portrait of a handful of asylum seekers stuck in the midst of a military coup in an unnamed country. Occasionally, the assured path to truth is through fiction.

À bientôt, j’espère / Be Seeing You (1968, 39 minutes) directed by Mario Marret & Chris Marker
In this documentary featurette, the 1967 strike at a textile plant in Besançon, France, serves as a related precursor to the events of May 1968. Given the current antipathy for unions in this country, À bientôt, j’espère is particularly timely.

Many thanks to Livia Bloom at Icarus Films (provider of the films for this program) and Tom Luddy of the Telluride Film Festival, friend and longtime co-collaborator of Chris Marker on a number of projects.

About the Director:
Born Christian Francois Bouche-Villeneuve on 29-July-1921, the multi-talented Chris Marker is one of the most celebrated artists in the world. Arguably best known for his films La Jetée (the Exploratorium has a 16mm film print in the collection) and Sans Soleil, his work as a director dates back to the early 1950s and continues to the present (with his recent Stopover in Dubai). In lieu of a full retrospective of which he richly deserves, this program in no way attempts to address the complexity and variety of his over half-century of work but, nonetheless, is a modest effort at acknowledging his impact and influence as a filmmaker, photographer and innovative artist.