Marker worked with the likes of Alain Resnais and Yves Montand.

French documentary filmmaker Chris Marker has died, aged 91.

Born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve in July 1921, Marker fought for the French resistance during World War Two before becoming a journalist after the war, writing for the likes of l’Esprit and Cahiers du cinéma. During his early film career, Marker worked with Alain Resnais on shorts such as Les Statues Meurent Aussi (1953) and Night And Fog (1955), and was often associated with the Left Bank Cinema movement in the late 1950s.

An infamously secretive person - Marker had a policy of never giving interviews or making public appearances - he is most notable for La Jetée (1962), a science fiction short composed almost entirely of still images which inspired Terry Gillam’s 12 Monkeys, and Sans Soleil (1983). Marker is also known for making modernist documentaries throughout his career, such as Lettre De Siberie (1957) and Si J’avais Quatre Dromadaires (1966).

Later in his career, Marker began working with new technologies, resulting in projects such as Immemory, a CD-ROM multimedia memoir released in 1998. His most recent work includes The Case Of The Grinning Cat (2004), a documentary about M. Chat street art in France.

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