Statues Also Die February 7–17, 2013

In conjunction with the exhibition “Modernity? Perspectives from France and Turkey,” and in collaboration with the French Cultural Institute, Istanbul Modern Cinema presents the program “Statues Also Die,” consisting of 14 films by French filmmaker Chris Marker who passed away last July. Just as his contemporary Jean-Luc Godard transformed film fiction, Marker has revolutionized documentary and produced films that question the definition of the genre and challenge its limits. Ranging from the director’s first film about the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games to the video of the trailer he created for the 2012 Vienna International Film Festival, this program consists of Marker’s avant-garde documentaries in which he puts on full display his mastery of montage and his brilliance at collecting images and scenes together. Among films that come to the fore in the program “Statues Also Die” is “La Jetée,” a science fiction film told through black-and-white still images which, 33 years later, would be revived in Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys nominated for the Academy Awards in 1995. Another film which is of note is “Sans Soleil”(1983), a travelogue about human memory and remembering that stretches from Africa to Japan.