Chris Marker, Chats perchés/The Case of the Grinning Cat (France, 2004) 58min and La Jetée (France, 1962) 28min

Master cinema-essayist Chris Marker whimsically reflects on art, culture and politics at the start of the new millennium, documenting the appearances of a charming graffiti’d grinning yellow cat in Parisian streets—the work of an anonyous street artist dubbed Monsieur Chat.  Monsieur Chat meets French politics as the capital’s streets are the stage for a changing social climate—from the pro-American feelings generated shortly after September 11, to the anti-Bush and Iraq War demonstrations that later became prevalent, as well as the public response to the 2002 French presidential elections that shockingly pitted right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen against center-right Jacques Chirac. Chats perchés highlights the vital importance of expressions of art and imagination in our public lives.  Plays in double feature with Marker’s post-apocalyptic cold-war classic, La Jetée, the inspiration for Hollywood’s 1995 Twelve Monkeys.