DVD-The Case of the Grinning Cat (En)

English
A Film By Chris Marker
DVD
Produced:Laurence Braunberger, Les Films du Jeudi
Icarus Films, September 2008
58 Minutes/Color
854565001039
Documentary - French Current Events & Culture

In his most recent film, French cinema-essayist Chris Marker reflects on art, culture and politics at the start of the new millennium.

In 2001, shortly after 9/11, intrigued by the sudden appearance of grinning, yellow cat paintings all over Paris: high up on buildings, on Metro walls, and in all sorts of unexpected places, Marker began to track the mysterious materializations of this charming feline.

Filmed over the next several years, Marker's cinematic journeys across Paris chronicle everything from political incidents and protests and demonstrations, to election campaigns, the evolution of French attitudes towards America, celebrity scandals, and of course more cat appearances.

Eventually the story of the cats is revealed, and Chris Marker and THE CASE OF THE GRINNING CAT conclude with thoughts on the vital importance of such expressions of imagination in our public lives, echoing the May '68 slogan that "Le Poesie est dans la rue!" ("Poetry is in the street!")

Plus 7 Bonus Films!

A Bestiary (5 short films on animals):
-Cat Listening to Music (3 min.)
-An Owl is an Owl is an Owl (3 min.)
-Zoo Piece (3 min.)
-Bullfight in Okinawa (4 min.)
-Slon Tango (4 min.)

Three Cheers for the Whale (17 min.)
-Co-directed with Mario Ruspoli

Leila Attacks (1min.)