2018
Fall 2018 festival screenings of Becoming Animal
Becoming Animal continues its tour this fall, with the following festival screenings:
Duisberger Filmwoche - November 8th. Peter Mettler in attendance!
Festival dei Popoli, Florence, Italy - November 9th.
Recontres International du Documentaire de Montréal (RIDM), Montréal, Canada - November 11th & 14th. Peter Mettler in attendance!
International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Netherlands - November 15th, 19th, 20th, 22nd, 24th. Dutch Premiere with Peter Mettler and Emma Davie in attendance!
Porto/Post/Doc Film & Media Festival, Porto, Portugal - November 26th and 28th.
Becoming Animal distribution announcements for UK and Canada
We are excited to announce Becoming Animal will be distributed theatrically in the UK this fall, via Scottish Documentary Institute. We are also excited to announce a spring release of the film in Canada – more news on that come soon!
And if you live elsewhere, don’t fret! Contact your favourite independent cinema today and tell them that you’d love to see Becoming Animal on the big screen in 2019! These sorts of actions are significant in helping to further the presence of the film and its message worldwide.
FilmExplorer interviews Peter Mettler about Becoming Animal
"The result is a cinematic experience that is both intellectual and sensual; Although in their density at times somewhat overwhelmed, but something succeeds, which is extremely rare in the cinema: literally and not just temporarily change your own perception. [...] Perception is, at least in "nature", always a reciprocal process in which man is only a small part of a huge network, to which animals, plants and also "inanimate" objects belonged like stones. Thus, Abram creates a kind of modern animism - after all, the very first of all religions, created in pre-linguistic times - that Mettler and Davie succeed in translating into cinematic language.”
View the complete interview on FILMEXPLORER here.
“It is almost impossible to think without relying on a specific human perception. To empathize with those of other living beings who have neither self-confidence nor language-based thought processes is an imponderable, an imponderable, without at least a temporary modification of their own perception - whether through meditation, drugs or other techniques. In Becoming Animal, however, Peter Mettler and Emma Davie, together with philosopher David Abram, are now considering precisely this: the different connections and differences in perception between man and nature. Knowing Peter Mettler's earlier films, it is not surprising that this consideration is not (alone) through language - which, as David Abram points out in the film, one of the main barriers in this regard - but takes place through a cinematic form whose purpose is to find a purely cinematic equivalent of the theses of Abram. The result is a cinematic experience that is both intellectual and sensual; Although in their density at times somewhat overwhelmed, but something succeeds, which is extremely rare in the cinema: literally and not just temporarily change your own perception.” – Text by Dominic Schmid, originally published June 8, 2018. Translated from German, original version available here.
Additional press on Becoming Animal also online:
Listen to Peter Mettler interviewed on SRF Radio Switzerland (in German and English).
“Becoming Animal heisst der neue Essayfilm des schweizerisch-kanadischen Regisseurs Peter Mettler. Darin denkt er nicht nur – zusammen mit dem Philosophen David Abrams über das Verhältnis Mensch-Tier nach, er lässt die Zuschauer sogar dank Mini-Kamera mit den Augen eines Raben die Welt sehen.”
You can also read articles on the film in the Swiss publications Pro Natura, Kraftbaum-Podcast, Filmbulletin, Tages-Anzeiger, and Tages-Anzeiger Züritipp.
Peter Mettler Retrospective at Kino Xenix, Zürich
This November, Kino Xenix presents a retrospective of Peter Mettler’s films, including Eastern Avenue (1985), Balifilm (1997), Picture of Light (1994), The Top Of His Head (1989), Gambling, Gods and LSD (2002), Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands (2009), The End Of Time (2012), Becoming Animal (2018), The Sound of Insects – Record of a Mummy (2009, dir. Peter Liechti), Broken Land (2014, directed by Stéphanie Barbey and Luc Peter), and the live performance document YoshtoYoshto (2017), in collaboration with Jeremy Narby and Franz Treichler.
"Mettler's films offer more than can generally be expected in the cinema: no escapism and numbness of the senses, but a formidable school of perception, associative visions and ideas for a sharpened awareness, encouragement for an open mind. Mettler does not conceive of himself as an omniscient author and narrator, but more as a constantly searching traveler, as an intuitive mediator, as a medium or filter, walking through the world with his camera, 'as if I were a musical instrument,' as he once said: 'Tuning is thematically oriented, based on an idea or a feeling.' Consequently, he understands the cutting of the collected material visually and acoustically as a kind of composing music: Instead of linearly telling a story, his films are meant to break conceptual thinking and create moods that lie beyond rational and linguistically namable truths. 'Movies are my way of interacting with the world and trying to understand them,' he says. Always trying to get on the track of the indescribable, the incomprehensible.
– Marcel Elsener (Translated from German, original version available here).
Manufactured Landscapes at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Manufactured Landscapes (2006, dir. Jennifer Baichwal, cinematography by Peter Mettler) will be presented at The Art Gallery of Ontario in conjunction with the Anthropocene exhibition by Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nick de Pencier. Book tickets here!
Wednesday, October 24th @ 9:00 pm
Saturday, November 24 @ 5:00 pm
Manufactured Landscapes is a feature documentary that follows renowned artist Edward Burtynsky as he travels through China photographing the evidence and effects of that country's massive industrial revolution. The Three Gorges Dam, factory floors a kilometre long and the breathtaking scale of Shanghai's urban renewal are subjects for his lens and our motion picture camera. Shot in Super-16mm film, the documentary extends the narratives of Burtynsky's photographs, meditating on human impact on the planet without trying to reach simplistic judgements or reductive resolutions. In the process, it shifts our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it.
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Photo by Edward Burtynsky.
Peter Mettler Retrospective at Tribute to a Vision, Italy/Slovenia
From October 15–22, Kinotelje Festival will be hosting Tribute To A Vision 2018, featuring a complete retrospective of the films of Peter Mettler in conjunction with the Darko Bratina Award. This event spans multiple cities across the border of Italy and Slovenia, and includes a master class presentation and live performance.
For details, visit Kinoatelje’s website or the Facebook event page. A complete list of film screenings is available here.
Peter Mettler gave a masterclass at Tribute to a Vision 2018, in advance of receiving the Darko Bratina Award. View the complete livestream here.
“Peter Mettler: Radicalized Cineasta (Insomnia, A Terrorist)”
Text by Denis Valič on Peter Mettler’s films
Commissioned for Tribute To A Vision Festival 2018. Translated from Italian; original version in Italian and Slovenian available here.
I would venture to say that Peter Mettler is one of those filmmakers who for one or the other reason really know many (at least by hearsay): whether for his valid reflections on contemporary society and on the obsessions of the same, or for the his continuous analysis of the role that technology plays in the creative process and in many aspects of our life; that both for his witty and discerning mix and intertwine his own cinematographic creative process with other artistic disciplines and means of expression, or simply for the numerous well-known artists with whom he collaborated (from the musician Fred Frith to the theatrical authority Robert Lepage), or, why not, perhaps for its almost bizarre obsession with science and the fundamental questions that it opens up, or simply because Mettler is a unique and deeply unconventional cinematographic author. However, at the same time, very few understand it.
In almost four decades of his film career he has in fact generated a wildly varied and surprisingly multiform production, without neglecting the fact that it is also quantitatively impressive. The unity of his works, at first sight perhaps not so directly (and certainly not intuitively) perceptible, we realize only by looking at his filmography in the light of his crucial decision and turning point: that of continuing to work, for the whole his career and without exception, outside the institutional production environments, in the name of complete creative freedom. Mettler has therefore consciously embraced the greater difficulty, unpredictability and commitment required by these production conditions. And it is considering this that, turning once again to the totality of his creations, we will suddenly see what we would not expect from certain facts and behaviours: we will be amazed by the creative continuity of Mettler despite its production conditions being not the most encouraging, and its almost workaholic efficiency in realizing and realizing its ideas and visions. It is therefore evident that in his creative process the conditions of production do not even remotely have the decisive role they play in the works of other authors, who are not so abandoned to themselves. So it is not surprising that Mettler has refused them so easily and apparently without delay. It is therefore a "loss" that Mettler evidently has not even warned, which has granted him a single but fundamental key element and allowed him to reach the one that without difficulty we recognize as the only - absolutely not negligible - condition of his process creative, that is to say, working on the conditions and in the spirit of total creative freedom which is precisely the absence of any external pretension, expectation or imperative, as well as the exclusion of the figures which, in the context of institutional production, constantly accompany creation; possible.
The direct and indirect consequences of this choice of the author, or rather of this almost obvious position that allows him to work in complete freedom from the creative point of view, pervade all his production and each of his creations, each plan and each phase of the his creative process, and finally also numerous aspects of his intimate relationship with his films, as well as his reflections on cinematography and its expressive means. These consequences are manifested in all their power and drama, for example, already on the level of the formal setting of his works. So the viewer who is about to know his films will seem at first glance (with that very first look still superficial and too "far") to categorize them in two defined sense groups, simply subdividing them into documentaries and fiction films. Well, these would understand very soon - to a slightly more careful observation – how unexpectedly the size of their error is. Each work by Mettler is in fact markedly or barely perceptible, but still distinguishable - different from the others. But we are concrete and immerse ourselves in the bulk of his works. We will find more or less classical documentaries (Picture of Light) but also extremely experimental (Petropolis), experiments in fiction features that, in dealing with the problem of heroin addiction, ask questions about the nature and levels of perception, on our individual and social identity, and on the probable appearance of consciousness in that technology that allows us to tell through images (his first feature film Scissere – passed to history as the first student film to be included in the official program of the Toronto festival), particular adaptations of theatrical works completely freed from the constraints of the form, in which it represents and reflects on the dramatic conflict between history, culture and human desires (Tectonic Plates), documentaries with socio-political inclinations, almost activistic, on current problems ecological (still Petropolis), and finally we find still ope These are hardly classifiable in which they are explored hardcore philosophical questions originating from the intersection of the animal world with the human one (Becoming Animal, to date his latest work).
Until a few days ago I thought I was a fairly good Mettler connoisseur. But then I began, slowly and gradually but continuously, with each new approach to the work, to discover dark areas, incredibly numerous, behind which hides aspects of his creativity completely unknown to me, and to notice ever more clearly that so far I was only bluffing more or less well. And now I find myself confused in front of this profound precipice that is its production, and I wonder if it still makes sense to invent and develop strategies of discovery in front of this collection of filmic images, stories and reflections, unconventional, sometimes extreme , but always bright. In fact, this escapes in a spontaneous and clear manner, in body and soul, to any categorization and systematization, which seems almost more sensible and practical to simply be transported by it. Peter Mettler was born in Canada - where he is considered (together with colleagues and collaborators A. Egoyan, B. McDonald and others) among the most important and original representatives of the movement, which originated in Ontario in the eighties, of new, so-called critics, filmmakers Canadians - but, as he himself always remembers, he feels a strong creative bond with his second homeland, Switzerland, where his parents were born (and here we add that both nations are strongly determined to take possession of it: it is not clear if lend themselves to each other or if one of them has appropriated his heart, the other of his vivacious neurons). The author creates, dividing himself between two houses and two homelands, and therefore he has made the necessity of confronting with borders and subdivisions virtues: he has placed it at the center of his own intimate creative world and has made his mission to go beyond borders. at the same time their own creative creed. He is awarded the Darko Bratina Award 2018. The filmmaker will be the main protagonist of this year's edition of the Poklon viziji / Homage to a vision, and between October 15 and 22 will present his works in seven cities cross-border area between Slovenia and Italy, including also Ljubljana. While on Tuesday 16 October in Gorizia, Mettler will conduct a daily masterclass at the Palazzo del Cinema (to find out more: kinoatelje.it). If you are enthusiastic about and challenge the challenge of diversity and creativity, based on the awareness of the need to overcome any and all limits, boundaries or divisions, do not miss the meeting with Mettler.
Peter Mettler’s films now available on Vimeo On Demand!
Peter Mettler’s films are now available for streaming rental or purchase through Vimeo On Demand.
View everything from the early short poetic features Scissere (1982) and Eastern Avenue (1985), the experimental dramas The Top Of His Head (1989) and Tectonic Plates (1992), and the epic documentaries Picture of Light (1994), Gambling, Gods and LSD (2002), Petropolis (2009), and The End of Time (2012). All available in HD, with newly remastered image restorations of Picture of Light and Gambling, Gods and LSD.
Upcoming festival screenings of Becoming Animal
Becoming Animal continues its festival tour! Co-director Emma Davie will be present at the following upcoming screenings, marking the film’s North American premiere:
USA premiere at Imagine Science Film Festival, The Rubin Museum, New York City – Wednesday, October 17th, 7:00pm. Buy tickets here!
Canadian premiere at Planet In Focus Film Festival, Innis Town Hall, Toronto – Saturday, October 27th, 9:30pm. Buy tickets here!
Dutch premiere at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam - Masters Selection - November 14–25th, schedule TBA soon. Details here!
Becoming Animal also begins a multi-city theatrical exhibition in Switzerland in October, distributed via Outside the Box. Peter Mettler will be in attendance at the following screenings, which will be accompanied by a Q&A:
October 24th – RiffRaff, Zürich
October 25th – Rex Bern
October 26th – Cameo Winterthur
October 27th – Kinok, St.Gallen
October 28th – Bourbaki, Lucerne
November 1st – Stadtkino, Basel
Ticket info and details to be posted soon!
View the trailer for Becoming Animal posted by Outside the Box.
Tribute to a Vision: Peter Mettler at Kinoatelje Film Festival 2018
This fall Peter will be honoured with a series of retrospective screenings as part of "Tribute to a Vision" (Omaggio a una visione; Poklon vizji) at Kinoatelje Film Festival. Hosted in various locations in Italy and Slovenia, the event will take place in October 2018 and include screenings of many of Mettler's films, including the new restorations of Picture of Light and Gambling, Gods and LSD, as well as his most recent film, Becoming Animal.
October 15, Palazzo del cinema, Gorizia – screening and discussion, Gambling, Gods and LSD (2002)
October 16, Palazzo del cinema, Gorizia – Masterclass and award ceremony with Peter Mettler, featuring screenings of The End of Time (2012), Broken Land (2014), and Becoming Animal (2018)
October 17, Kuturni dom, Nova Gorica – screenings and discussion, Picture of Light (1994), Lancalot Freely (1980), and Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands (2009)
October 18, Cinema Visionario, Udine – screenings and discussion, Tectonic Plates (1992), Becoming Animal (2018)
October 19, ISK & SMO, San Pietro al Natisone – screening and discussion, Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands (2009)
October 19, Teatro San Giorgio, Udine – Live image mixing performance by Peter Mettler, in collaboration with Forma Free Music Impulse and Contemporanea
October 20, Teatro Miela, Trieste – screening and discussion, Eastern Avenue (1985), Balifilm (1997)
October 21, Art kino Odeon, Izola – screening and discussion, The Top of His Head (1989)
October 22, Slovenska kinoteka, Ljubljana – screenings and discussion, Scissere (1982), Becoming Animal (2018)
Peter Mettler in person at MIDBO 2018, Bogotá
Peter Mettler will present multiple films at the 20th Muestra Internacional Docmental de Bogotá, in Columbia from October 3–6, 2018.
Becoming Animal at Open City Docs, London
Wednesday September 5, 6:45pm - with Emma Davie and Peter Mettler in person!
"In this immersive, visually inventive film, directors Emma Davie (I Am Breathing) and Peter Mettler (The End of Time) journey into Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park with philosopher and cultural ecologist David Abram, searching for the liminal spaces where humans and animals meet. Challenging our human-centric view of the natural world, this subversive nature film uses cinema’s sensory tools to explore humanity’s relationship with the natural environment, proposing—through expressionistic visuals and stimulating narration—that a better balance can be achieved. An essay film unlike any other, Becoming Animal is an sublime sensorial experience and an inspiring, intellectual one too."
Becoming Animal at DokuFest, Prizren
Becoming Animal screens three times this August at DokuFest, Kosovo's premier documentary film festival. Details here!
Interview with José Teodoro in Brick: A Literary Journal
Peter Mettler is interviewed about the making of Picture of Light by Toronto-based author and playwright José Teodoro in the May 2018 issue of Brick: A Literary Journal. Read it online for free here!
"We didn’t know how to film the northern lights. We brought the gear, but we didn’t know how bright the lights were. [...] We’d shoot according to these hypotheses and then develop the images in the bathroom. You see a moment of that in the film, us landing on a ballpark figure for the exposure. I thought the process of getting the northern lights on film was interesting in its own right, though I didn’t yet know what the film was about..."
Peter Mettler in person at Doc Montevideo
Peter Mettler will attend Doc Montevideo in Uruguay (July 20-26, 2018) to present a selection of his films in person and conduct a master class.
Picture of Light screening on July 23rd
Becoming Animal screening on July 26th
Master Class Documentary Seminar with Peter Mettler on July 26th
Read an article in Busqueda on Peter's appearance at Doc Montevideo here (in Spanish).
Picture of Light at Maine International Film Festival
Saturday, July 21, 9:30pm – Waterville Opera House
Sunday, July 22, 3:30pm – Railroad Square Cinema
Aurora Borealis: The Northern Lights. We see them in Maine in winter—if we’re very lucky. But you see them more reliably and more spectacularly as you head north. So that’s what Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler and his brave crew did to make Picture of Light, shown here in a new restoration so those lights haven’t faded. Mettler heads to to Canada’s arctic in search of one of Earth’s greatest natural wonders. While combining glimpses of the characters who live in this remote environment with the film crew’s comic and absurd attempts to deal with the extreme cold, the film reveals the paradoxes involved in trying to capture the spectacular light show of the Northern Lights on celluloid. But, non-spoiler alert: they do!
Reviews of Becoming Animal now online!
"Something actually new and full of life came in the form of freewheeling audiovisual essay Becoming Animal, a collaboration between Scottish filmmaker Emma Davie and Swiss-Canadian Peter Mettler. With input from philosopher David Abram and shot in one of North America’s most intact ecosystems, the film explores notions of animism and the effects of language on our perception of the natural world. Although a largely meditative experiment, some surprising late shifts in the cinematography, in which the camera appears strapped to one of the park’s flying residents, brought to mind the more visceral documentary Leviathan (2012). The soundscapes, in particular, make a big-screen viewing recommended." Read Josh Slater-Williams on highlights at the Edinburgh Film Festival in BFI's Sight and Sound
"Mesmerising and immersive, Becoming Animal is an exercise in hypnotic induction, in which Davie, Mettler and Abram attempt to deconstruct psychological, linguistics and technological barriers in order to facilitate a meeting not of minds or souls but of kin. It’s one thing to record the natural world; it’s quite another to reconcile it." Read Steven Neish's review of Becoming Animal at HeyUGuys
"Thanks to Mettler and Davie for their 'fantastic naivety'... It serves not to lose consciousness, but to expand it... You have to see Becoming Animal in the cinema... Phenomenal and mind-expanding!" Read Marcel Elsener's review of Becoming Animal in Saiten Magazine (in German)
"A cinematic experience that is both intellectual and sensual; although in its density at times somewhat overwhelming, something succeeds that is extremely rare in the cinema: it literally and not just temporarily changes your own perception. [...] Perception is, at least in 'nature', always a reciprocal process in which man is only a small part of a huge network, to which animals, plants and also 'inanimate' objects belong like stones. Abram creates a kind of modern animism – the very first of all religions, created in pre-linguistic times – that Mettler and Davie succeed in translating into cinematic language." Read Dominic Schmid's article on Filmexplorer (in German)
"Genuinely eye-opening... A fascinating, thought-provoking and pleasingly free-wheeling film." – Barry Didcock, Herald Scotland
Filmfest München presents Becoming Animal
German Premiere of Becoming Animal at Filmfest München!
July 30, 2018 – 20:00 – Atelier 2
July 1, 2018 – 15:30 – Münchner Freiheit 3
"A herd of elk cross the road, indifferent to the traffic jam they're creating. How do animals see people and how do people see animals, including the animals within themselves? Filmmakers Emma Davie and Peter Mettler travel with philosopher David Abram to Grand Teton National Park in western Wyoming to search for the answers to these and other questions. Using the latest highly sensitive camera technology, they observe the animals – from snails to birds to, well, calmly wandering elk – living their lives."
For more info visit https://www.filmfest-muenchen.de/en/programm/filme/film/?id=5781
Edinburgh International Film Festival presents Becoming Animal
UK Premiere of Becoming Animal at Edinburgh International Film Festival! Tickets available at edfilmfest.org.uk
June 21, 2018 - 18:15 - Filmhouse 1
June 23, 2018 - 13:10 - VUE Omni
"Shot in Grand Teton National Park, this immersive essay film draws together the distinctive sensibilities of filmmakers Emma Davie (I Am Breathing) and Peter Mettler (The End of Time) with philosopher David Abram (The Spell of the Sensuous) to encounter the spaces where humans and animals meet. A subversive nature film in which our senses are piqued as we bear witness the so-called natural world, which, in turn, witnesses us."
Bildrausch Filmfestival presents Becoming Animal
Swiss Premiere of Becoming Animal at Bildrausch Filmfest!
June 2, 2018 - 13.45 - Stadtkino Basel
June 3, 2018 - 17.20 - Stadtkino Basel
"Its antlers are stately, its gaze penetrating. There it stands and looks at us, the elk, in the middle of the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, which is its home. It is a world where the creatures that infinitely enrich the region have precedence, and where we cautiously immerse ourselves – be it from a bird’s eye view, or very close-up, grasping the animals directly with our senses, like a snail that extends its tentacles to feel its surroundings. It is only in this way, the essay film by Emma Davie (I am Breathing) and Peter Mettler (The End of Time) declares, that we can establish relationships between what we are and what surrounds us: human beings and animals, space and time, body and intuition. Together with the philosopher and radical thinker David Abram, the Scottish documentary filmmaker and her Canadian-Swiss colleague embark on a fascinating sensory exploration of nature, using observations and reflections to bring the viewer back to the point where the mutual dependency and interaction between human and animal forces are once again made tangible. In close contact with buffaloes, ravens, hot springs and rustling forests, they reach amazing insights and perspectives about the here and now as well as about its many pre-histories."
Directors in attendance, tickets available at https://goo.gl/1gdDCw
DocumentaMadrid presents Becoming Animal
May 9–10, 2018 – Madrid, Spain
Documenta Madrid hosts the Spanish Premiere of Becoming Animal
"Nature sees itself through our eyes," explains philosopher David Abram in this brilliant three-part essay. The captivating and almost tactile images get interrelated sensorially as the reflections get dispersed out, providing us insight into a philosophy in which intuition, phenomenology and a critique of anthropocentrism are the pillars of thought and life. (DV) documentamadrid.com
Directors in attendance!
Watch an interview with Peter Mettler conducted by the festival here!
Docs Against Gravity presents Becoming Animal
May 13, 16, 20, 2018 – Warsaw, Poland
May 14, 2018 – Wrocław, Poland
Docs Against Gravity presents the Polish premiere of Peter Mettler’s newest film, Becoming Animal.
Shot in and around Grand Teton National Park, this immersive, palpably rendered audiovisual essay draws together the distinct sensibilities of filmmakers Peter Mettler (The End of Time) and Emma Davie (I am Breathing) and philosopher David Abram (The Spell of the Sensuous) to forge a path into the places where humans and animals meet, where we pique our senses to witness the so-called natural world—which in turn witnesses us. Over a soundscape of shivering leaves and animal murmurs, rushing rivers and electronic voices, insects and automobiles, Becoming Animal embraces the sensory tools of cinema allowing us to behold inquisitive antelope and digital billboards; Buffalo block traffic while moose clash antlers and a snail’s body becomes a landscape of its own. Conscious of their own complicity with the animal world, the filmmakers invite us to explore this “more than human world”and recognize it for what it is: an exquisitely intricate system in which everything is alive and expressive, humans, animals and landscapes are inextricably interdependent, and there is no such thing as empty space.
Tickets available at docsag.pl.
Doc Films Festival presents Picture of Light
April 2, 2018 – 19:00 – The University of Chicago, Chicago
Part of the series, “Beyond Hollywood North: Contemporary Canadian Voices and Visions.”
In the early 90s, director Mettler, Swiss meteorologist Andreas Zuest, and a tiny crew traveled to Churchill, Manitoba on an elusive and notoriously challenging quest to capture the famed Aurora Borealis on film. A mesmerizing, visually stunning portrait of a phenomenon so widely known yet experienced by so few, Picture of Light is a poetic work about technology and nature, the ephemeral, its representability, and the creation of images. More info at docfilms.org
Yoshtoyoshto Live Performance at CPH:DOX
March 17, 2018 – 19:00 – Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
A filmmaker, a musician and an anthropologist merge images, sound and knowledge into an alchemistic live improvisation.
The filmmaker and old friend of CPH:DOX Peter Mettler is back at the festival with his film Becoming Animal. But what's more, he is also performing live with the anthropologist Jeremy Narby and the musician Franz Treichler (the frontman of the legendary industrial band Young Gods). The three friends let their talents meet in an improvisational performance with hypnotic live VJing, trance-like soundscapes and spoken word. The name Yoshtoyoshto refers to the distorted and metaphorical language that the Amazon people Yaminahua sing when they try to contact yoshi – the invisible beings that according to their beliefs give life to all things living. By feeding off each other's presence and the material, sonic and oral impressions they leave on the space, the three gentlemen become the medium for an insight into the world's 'Unconscious'.
Gambling, Gods and LSD at CPH:DOX
March 18, 2018 – 15:15 – Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
March 24, 2018 – 23:15 – Gloria, Copenhagen
“One of the last fifteen years' most magnificent and visionary documentaries is a monument to ecstasy as a source of happiness - and new knowledge. If you did not yet see Peter Mettler's masterpiece at the very first edition of CPH:DOX in 2003, you have the opportunity to do so this year, where we celebrate the world premiere of his and Emma Davie's Becoming Animal with a special screening of the film that set new, visionary standards for documentary originality. Gambling, Gods and LSD is about achieving happiness and a deeper insight through ecstasy. A picturesque cinematic travel journal from America via Europe to India. And from philosophy and religion via rave parties to a conversation with Albert Hofmann – the chemist who invented LSD. Mettler's journey around the world starts in his home town of Toronto with a Christian cult, which dances and sings its way into the ether, and ends with a visit to a laughter club in Mumbai. A happy ending? For Mettler, travelling is the journey's actual goal, and he has a highly unusual openness for accepting what comes his way. Three hours of thought-provoking grandeur, which in itself will lift your spirits, maybe even make you ecstatic – and certainly leaves you with new knowledge about the great, mad world we live in.”
CPH:DOX presents Picture of Light
March 18, 2018 – 19:00 – Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
“In search of northern lights, in a beautiful and philosophical film from the end of the world, with music by Jim O'Rourke. Since the dawn of time, Aurora Borealis – or just northern lights – have invited the imaginations among the few lucky people, who have had the opportunity to experience the phenomenon at first hand, to go rampant. And even though modern science today can explain what we see, the magic remains the same. 'Picture of Light' was one of the first films that actually immortalized the delicate waves of northern lights. Created during an expedition far out in the Canadian wilderness with an excentric meteorologist and a small film crew, where the journey – as always with Peter Mettler – is both an adventure in itself and a tribute to the freedom of thought. 'We live at a time when things don't seem to exist if they are not captured as an image. But if you look into darkness with your eyes closed, you can see the reflection of light on your retina – much like the flickering of northern lights, much like the movement of thought.' A magnum opus among the films that paved the way for the breakthrough of modern documentary filmmaking. Tickets available, director in attendance.
World Premiere of Becoming Animal at CPH:DOX
March 20, 2018 – 19:00 – Grand Teatret, Copenhagen, Copenhagen
March 22, 2018 – 10:00 – Cinemateket
March 24, 2018 – 17:00 – Gloria, Copenhagen
“A visionary field trip to Wyoming's wild and vast nature becomes a philosophical reevaluation of our relationship with the world that surrounds us.
By examining the relationship between man and the other species we share the planet with, we have opened up new ways to understand our place in the world. 'Becoming Animal' is an attempt to give some of these new ways of thinking a cinematic form. An essay based on a 'field trip' to Wyoming's wild nature, in the company of the bio-philosopher David Abram and the two visionary filmmakers Emma Davie and Peter Mettler. And with an abundance of bison, moose and birds. Both form and thought are unchained in a film that ends up moving (far) beyond man's self-centred view of nature, and into a state of almost psychedelic receptiveness. As Mettler asks: are language and modern technology a barrier or an open door between us and the world that surrounds us? And what about the film medium itself? Throughout his many years as a filmmaker, Mettler has dealt with abstract phenomena such as northern lights, ecstasy and time itself, and with Davie and Abram as travelling companions, Becoming Animal (which is named after Abram's landmark book) is a film that makes you see things with slightly different eyes.”
Tickets available, directors in attendance.
CPH:DOX Masterclass: Peter Mettler
March 23 - 10:30 - Cinemateket, Copenhagen
“In the hands of the Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler, abstract topics such as northern lights, time, ecstasy and most recently the relationship between human beings and animals turn into inspiring philosophical opuses, which push the film medium to its utmost limits and look like nothing else. And on top of it all, he's a really nice guy! Meet him for a master class on using the film medium's special qualities as the basis for new knowledge and artistic explorations. The brand new 'Becoming Animal' (co-directed by Emma Davie) is premiered at this year's festival. And on top of that, Mettler is this year's Artist in Focus in our Science programme, where we show two of his main works.”
Architextures New Year's Day 2018 Marathon After-Party
“It’s that time again… 2017 is starting to unravel to make way for 2018. As usual we’ll be celebrating the first day of the year with style! Starting at 12 noon New Year's Day and continuing straight through into the evening again, our stellar line-up of DJs and VJs represents the most dedicated of Architechs through the years, all more than ready to keep the party vibe going … and going … This is your one stop destination for all-day-long after party shenanigans!! Visuals by Peter Mettler and crew.”
2017
“Focus Peter Mettler Expanded” at Porto/Post/Doc
December 1-3, 2017 - Porto, Portugal
“The Focus Peter Mettler Expanded is dedicated to the Swiss-Canadian filmmaker and will screen his three major documentaries: Picture of Light, Gambling, Gods and LSD and The End of Time. The work of Mettler is a reflection on the human condition and on time, trying to discuss central themes of the contemporary existence. This focus will be complemented by the Yoshtoyoshto performance, from the metaphorical language found in the Yaminahua tribe, which lives in the Amazon. It is a musical and visual experience on the ambiguity of language and our world, shared by Mettler, but also Franz Treichler and anthropologist Jeremy Narby.”
For more information visit the PortoPost/Doc website.
Read an interview with Peter Mettler by Daniel Ribas & Catarina Maia.
Picture of Light at Centro Galego de Artes da Imaxe
December 1, 2017 - A Coruña, Spain
Centro Galego de Artes da Imaxe presents Picture of Light. For more information visit https://goo.gl/mxfkWY.
“Afterimage: Peter Mettler” at BAMPFA
November 1–5, 2017 – Berkeley, California
Afterimage: Peter Mettler, at UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
”A Canadian of Swiss heritage, Toronto-based filmmaker Peter Mettler uses the imagistic quality of cinema to express metaphysical concerns. In his distinctive body of work as a director, producer, cinematographer, editor, and sound designer, he combines structural rigor with aesthetic freedom and an intuitive sensibility, balancing an intimately human connection to his subjects with large-scale ruminations on the meaning of life.
“Mettler’s Picture of Light utilizes a modified camera mechanism to record the beauty and mystery of the aurora borealis in the night sky of northern Canada. Manufactured Landscapes, for which Mettler was the cinematographer and a creative collaborator, reveals the human toll and environmental waste associated with our consumer-driven economy. Commissioned by Greenpeace, Petropolis pulls back far enough from its perspective on the Alberta Tar Sands mining project to offer a meditation on this ecological horror. And, despite its globetrotting location shooting and use of computer-generated imagery, The End of Time never departs from Mettler’s direct and personal engagement with the people, places, and phenomena he depicts.
“Bay Area–based film critic Michael Fox will join Mettler in conversation after two screenings. Mettler also offers valuable insights into his use of the language of cinema at a presentation of Manufactured Landscapes as part of our In Focus program, helping to kick off the series The Art of Cinematography.” – Susan Oxtoby, Senior Film Curator, BAMPFA
Picture of Light at Windsor International Film Festival
November 1, 2017 - Windsor, ON, Canada
Free screening of Picture of Light!
Petropolis at Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival
October 21, 2017 – Toronto, Canada
Planet in Focus Film Festival presents a curated history of environmental filmmaking in Ontario. Along with other films, an excerpt of Petropolis will be presented by programmer Marc Glassman.
Teledivinity at Harbourfront Center Theatre as part of Dual Light
October 19–21, 2017 – Harbourfront Centre Theatre, Toronto, Canada
Dual Light is presented by Dreamwalker's artistic director Andrea Nann, in creation with dance artists and fellow performers, Brendan Wyatt, Yuichiro Inoue, Kristy Kennedy, and designers Simon Rossiter (lighting and scenography), Cheryl Lalonde (costume and scenography), Joshua Van Tassel (sound), AJ Morra (production and stage management), James Kendal (scenographic performer), and dramaturge Sarah Chase.
“A moving concept album about the space between things…”
An installation of Peter Mettler's Teledivinitry lightboxes will be on display as part of the performance.
The End Of Time at DokuBaku International Documentary Film Festival
October 19, 2017 – Baku, Azerbaijan
DokuBaku International Documentary Film Festival announces their inaugural international program, featuring The End Of Time.
Pciture of Light at Edmonton International Film Festival
October 4, 2017 - Edmonton, AB, Canada
Free screening of Picture of Light at the Edmonton International Film Festival! For more information: https://goo.gl/uz9W2a
Photography by Peter Mettler published in Obacht Kultur Magazine
Peter Mettler is known for a diversity of work in image and sound mediums. His photographs from the Appenzell 2016 Cattle Show are featured in Obacht Kulture Magazin, Issue 28, 2017/2. You can download a PDF of the issue here (in German).
World premiere of Picture of Light remastered version at TIFF 2017
Thursday, September 14, 2017 at 3pm - Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF Bell Lightbox
To commemorate Canada 150, Picture of Light was digitally restored by TIFF, Library and Archives Canada, Cinémathèque québécoise, and The Cinematheque in Vancouver. This work was made possible by presenting partners: The Government of Canada, The Royal Bank of Canada and The Government of Ontario, and by supporting partner Telefilm Canada. Restoration work was carried out at Technicolor Toronto, with soundtrack restoration by Lou Solakofski of Tattersall Sound and Picture, with collaborative input from by Peter Bräker, the film’s original sound designer, and supervised by Peter Mettler.
About Picture of Light: Peter Mettler’s attempt to capture the aurora borealis on film is a meditation on nature and technology, and on the very act of image-making itself. An exquisite exploration of civilization in extremis, the limits of cinematic apprehension, and the idea of north, Picture of Light marked a turning point in the singular career of Peter Mettler, forming a bridge between his more psychology-driven early films and his peripatetic magnum opus, Gambling, Gods and LSD. "I met a man who loves to watch the sky." Prompted by a challenge posed by Swiss polymath Andreas Züst — who would become both Picture of Light's executive producer and one of its enigmatic characters — this pre-digital expedition to capture the aurora borealis on celluloid follows Mettler and his cohort from their Toronto headquarters to Churchill, Manitoba, where forbidding weather yields downtime, which in turn yields fascinating encounters with local eccentrics, feats of mock bravado, and queries into technology, primal urges, and wonderment.
"Picture of Light confronts the ontological status of film, brandishing profundity, humour and many extraordinarily beautiful images." – Peter Urquhart, Reverse Shot
“Buoyed by the musical squalls of avant-rock savant Jim O'Rourke, visions of the sought-after meteorological phenomena arrive first in fleeting glimpses and, eventually, in sustained surveys roiling with supernatural dazzle. But Mettler's voiceover and finely sculpted odyssey-narrative, favouring questions over answers, ever cognizant of the distance dividing lived experience from film-as-beguiling-surrogate, leave us with a lingering sense that some crucial element in all this remains tantalizingly elusive.” – José Teodoro, TIFF 2017 Programme Guide
Picture of Light at Cinefest Sudbury
September 22, 2017 - Sudbury, ON, Canada
Cinefest Sudbury presents a free screening of Picture of Light. For more information: https://goo.gl/mbCHn4
Peter Mettler included in Imago Mundi exhibition
August 29th, 2017 - October 29th – Venice, Italy
Imago Mundi Art is the collection of works commissioned by Luciano Benetton, all using a 10x12 cm canvas, which aims to unite the diversities of our world in the name of common artistic experience. The exhibit is on display at the Palazzo Loredan in Venice, Italy, curated by Francesca Valente with Peter Mettler participating among 216 diverse Canadian artists.
Picture of Light at Gimli Film Festival
July 26-30, 2017 – Gimli, MB, Canada
Gimli Film Festival will be screening Picture of Light. Read the programmers picks here.
Picture of Light at Open Air Summer Cinema in Warsaw
July 21, 2017 – Warsaw, Poland
Open Air Summer Cinema will be showing Picture of Light at Centrum Nauki Kopernik. For more information: https://goo.gl/NUgD9W
Cheng² Duo performance with images by Peter Mettler
June 23, 2017 – National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
Silvie plays the piano and Bryan the cello. Together the Ottawa siblings make up Cheng² Duo and together they are touring the world. On June 23 they will present a specially developed commissioned performance that will speak to the five regions of Canada. Performance at the National Gallery of Canada, accompanied with visuals by award-winning Canadian painters, photographers, and filmmakers, including Edward Burtynsky, Mercury Films, Artless Collective / Aerials North, Peter Mettler and Parks Canada.
YoshtoYoshto – Performance Trailer
// PETER METTLER - FRANZ TREICHLER - JEREMY NARBY // A live divination with Moving Image, Music and Story //
A filmmaker, a musician and an anthropologist fuse their arts in a live alchemical improvisation, feeding off one another in real time, drawing from our shared human existence, saturated with knowledge, sound and image.
This three-way fusion mixes hypnotic technologies with oral tradition. It transforms and re-contextualizes self-made and collected materials. It engages in a kind of divination of the mediated world’s ‘unconscious’.
Amazonian Yaminahua people say all living beings are animated by yoshi, which are invisible, multi-faceted beings. To communicate with yoshi, they sing in an indirect and metaphoric language called “tsai yoshto yoshto,” “language twisting twisting”, or twisted language. Yaminahua people use twisted language to address the multi-faceted yoshi beings, because “normal words would crash into them”, whereas twisted words allow you to go in close, but not too close, to circle around them, and see them clearly. Here metaphor is not improper naming but the only naming possible.
Peter Mettler on International Competition Jury at DocumentaMadrid
May 4–14, 2017 – Madrid, Spain
Peter Mettler will participate as a jury member of this year’s DocumentaMadrid.
ZK Collective Live in Ibiza
April 8, 2017 – Ibiza, Spain
Peter Mettler’s image mixing will be included as part of a live outdoor performance with ZK Collective.
Peter Mettler live image mixing performance with Sebastian Mullaert
March 3, 2017 - Kitchener, ON, Canada
Peter Mettler will be performing live visuals alongside Sebastian Mullaert of Minilogue at Blue Dot 2017.
Peter Mettler included in “Out of the Bush Garden” exhibition
Imago Mundi is a collection of works commissioned and collected by Luciano Benetton on his travels around the world, involving, on a voluntary and non-profit basis, established and emerging artists from many different countries. Each of them has created a work whose only restriction is its 10x12cm format, contributing to the creation of a remarkable artistic geography.
In 2017, Imago Mundi is developing a new, broad and diverse collection dedicated to Canada: works that bring together the creativity and expressive cultures of artists from the central-eastern side of the country, including artists from Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador. From the complex and erratic mosaic of the canvases, the different cultural souls of this vast country emerge, as do the contamination and amalgamation of different languages, colours and forms. The collection aims to unite the diversities of our world in the name of common artistic experience. The goal is to catalogue works, inspirations and ideas, in order to pass down to future generations the widest possible mapping of the situation of human cultures at the start of the third millennium.
The Central-Eastern Canada: Out of the Bush Garden edition was curated by Francesca Valente with Peter Mettler participating among 216 diverse artists. His creation, Nest (2015), was constructed through a hand-crafted darkroom print using manually applied silver-halide emulsion. The print is augmented by a piece of mounted antimonite that comes from a rare large hydrothermal deposit in Romania. Antimonite has been used for centuries as Egyptian Kohl or eyeliner, for fireworks, and formerly in photographic flash compositions. The 17th century alchemist Eirenaeus Philalethes describes antimonite as a precursor to philosophical mercury, which was itself a hypothetical precursor to the “Philosopher’s Stone” - the legendary alchemical substance capable of turning base metals into gold that was also thought to be used for achieving immortality. Thus, the Stone symbolized perfection at its finest, enlightenment and heavenly bliss.
For more information preview the upcoming documentary directed by Laurie Kwasnik (password: imagomundi)
Imago Mundi is presented as a limited edition book that can be purchased at Fabrica and other online outlets.
Manufactured Landscapes at TIFF
January 14, 2017 – TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto, Canada
TIFF is hosting a free screening of Manufactured Landscapes on Saturday, January 14 as part of Canada's Top Ten Film Festival.
The winner of the Best Canadian Feature from the Academy of Canadian Cinema, Manufactured Landscapes follows celebrated Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, whose large-scale studies present a stunning aesthetic dimension to the industrial conquest of nature.
Cinematographer and creative consultant Peter Mettler will be in attendance.
Architextures New Years Marathon
January 1, 2017 – Round Venue, Toronto, Canada
Peter Mettler will perform a live improvised image mixing set at Architextures Marathon After-Party at ROUND (152a Augusta Avenue) featuring local Toronto talent.
2016
Text on Eastern Avenue by Filmexplorer
Read an article on Eastern Avenue article by Giuseppe Di Salvatore on Filmexplorer
"I must agree that this tapping of the unconscious, of reacting to the flow all around, remains essential and just out of reach of a defining intellect. It's as though there is a desire towards human perception before language - but of course our languages and technologies allow us to even ponder the position…" – Peter Mettler
Picture of Light at Istanbul Modern
November 5-6, 2016 – Istanbul, Turkey
Istanbul Modern is hosting a design and lighting oriented film program entiled “Day, Light, Night”.
The program features experimental works by various directors made around the theme of lighting, and will include a presentation of Picture of Light.
Yoshtoyoshto and Peter Mettler Retrospective in Lausanne & Geneva
Peter teams up with musician Franz Treichler (vocalist of The Young Gods) and anthropologist Jeremy Narby (author of The Cosmic Serpent) for three live performances of Yoshtoyoshto in Lausanne and Geneva. This 3-way mix of hypnotic technologies with oral tradition, transforms and re-contextualizes self-made and collected materials. In so doing, it engages in a kind of divination of the mediated world’s ‘unconscious’.
Friday, November 18 - 20:00
Saturday, November 19 - 20:00
Théâtre de Vidy
Av. E.-H. Jaques-Dalcroze 5
CH - 1007 Lausanne, Switzerland
Tickets & Info
Thursday, November 24 - 20:30
Musée d'ethnographie de Genève - MEG
Boulevard Carl-Vogt 65-67,
1205 Genève, Switzerland
Tickets & Info
In parallel the Cinematheque Suisse will run a full Peter Mettler Retrospective from November 14 - December 22 in Lausanne. This includes student films, rarely seen early celluloid prints like the adaptation of Robert Lepage and Co's Tectonic Plates, collaborations and a special event screening of the new digital version of Gambling, Gods and LSD in Switzerland's largest Cinema Le Capitole.
Download retrospective program guide (French) for full details. Peter Mettler in attendance.
Peter Mettler’s archive to be acquired by TIFF Research Library
An exciting announcement from TIFF – the acquisition of four major print collections, one of which is the archive of Peter Mettler, which includes 16mm and 35mm printing elements from his early films, a substantial amount of production and personal creative documents, and decades worth of research.
“Thanks to TIFF, some of our own cinema heritage will be preserved, allowing future folk to look back upon particular gestures of expression and documentation, giving clues to the state of affairs and sensibilities from whence they themselves came. A phrase from my notebooks for The End of Time becomes relevant here: I ask of you the future to help explain the present while knowing that my questions are likely answers for mysteries of your past.” – Peter Mettler
Read an article about this acquisition in The Toronto Star here.
Peter Mettler at In/Future Festival, Cinesphere Ontario
September 15-25, 2016 – Toronto, Canada
Join Peter Mettler at In/Future, a festival of Art and Music at Ontario Place this September. In/Future is presented by ArtSpin in collaboration with Small World Music. In/Future will feature over 50 multidisciplinary art projects created and curated specially for the event, including two collaborative pieces with Peter Mettler, with renowned Toronto multimedia artists John Oswald and Tom Kuo.
"The Garden" is the first collaborative step in an exploration of outdoor audio/visual projections in an environment of lush vegetation with musician and installation artist, Tom Kuo. Presented during nighttime for the duration of the festival, from September 15-25th.
A decorative play of light, image and sound set within the layers of constructed and actual natural habitats that once served as an adventure ride for its visitors. The surrounding environment of thoroughfares for air, water and automobile nest this conflagration of wires and pulses that are altogether born of the elemental earth upon which one treads. During a walkabout through darkness and light, earthly primordial creation and human fantasy emerge in the night as images projected onto leaves or the mouth of a cavern, giving life and memory to a place that has in recent years gone unnoticed.
"Confluence: Inner Pierces Outer Spaces" is a collaboration between John Oswald and Peter Mettler, who will meet for the first time as improvising musician and live image-mixing performers at the confluence and scale of innerspace and outerspace. This event will take place September 18th, 7pm, at Ontario Place Cinesphere.
Moving into the future we see ever more deeply into cosmic reaches unimaginably far from our ground, but also into new and unfamiliar dimensions of perception, knowledge and awareness. Our image-making media lie at the crux of inner and outer exploration in that they have the potential to both document objective reality and subjective inner space, suggesting and discovering altered ways of being and seeing. - Peter Mettler
In this live performance, these two artists draw spontaneously from a large database of collected and self-produced movie and sound clips, mixing, editing, layering, and effecting them, much as two musicians might in performing an instrumental duet; effecting a dialogue between two mediums and two senses. There is no fixed plan, script or score, rather each reacts to the other, building a one-of-a-kind live audio visual experience. They will use as their base archival images drawn from some of Nasa’s cosmic recordings, highlighting machine mediated vision, autonomous spacecrafts, landing ports, and telescopes that travel back through time. This is paralleled by the media arts and entertainment industries’ huge variety of fanciful renderings of what might be found in the beyond. All together, with the artists reactions to and manipulations of this raw unpredictable material, the whole may coalesce into a reflection of our earthly yearning and imagination. The event will also feature presentations of Peter's recent short films, Traces Du Futur (2014, 3 min), and the condensed version of Petropolis (2009/2014, 15 min).
Picture of Light at Syros International Film Festival
July 31, 2016 – Syros, Greece
Picture of Light will be screened as part of the Syros International Film Festival as part of an outdoor screening at Komito, curated by Pip Chodorov, "To See in a New Way."
Petropolis at Vienna Independent Short Festival
May 27th, 2016 – Stadkino Im Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Austria
The condensed version of Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands will be presented at VIS Vienna Independent Shorts Festival.
World Premiere: From The Vortex Perspective, a newly commissioned work by Peter Mettler and composer Paul Frehner at New Creations Festival 2016
March 9, 2016 – Roy Thompson Hall, Toronto, Canada
New Creations Festival 2016 has commissioned a brand-new piece by Peter Mettler in collaboration with the Canadian composer Paul Frehner and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
From The Vortex Perspective is a short work for live cinema and orchestra derived through a cyclical exchange of musical and visual propositions between Frehner and Mettler. The notion of rotation around an axis is at the heart of this work, both in reference to the process of its creation as well as in its thematic and musical content. Notions of humanity’s relationship to cycles, orbits and tides are implied through a variety of contexts, from experiential and environmental, to scientific and mystic.
As the conductor and orchestra interpret the music from Frehner’s score, Mettler perform the edits, mixes and combinations of cinematic sound and imagery live to the music, projecting onto three different screens installed in Roy Thompson Hall. Every rendering of the piece reveals a different combination and chemistry of image and orchestral performance.
From The Vortex Perspective will be presented as part of the event “Two Memorials (for Anton Webern and John Lennon).”
2015
Live Image Mixing at Burdock Brewery
Happy holidays! If you're in Toronto, check out the wabi holiday jam, featuring live image mixing by Peter Mettler alongside Farbraumlenkungsaktiv and Kuro, and featuring DJ sets from nitsuji, ozawa, task and otaku. At Burdock Brewery, 1184 Bloor St W, Toronto, Ontario M6H 1N2. December 30, 2015, doors at 9pm.
Live image performance, Taken By Night at The Whole Shebang
Peter Mettler performs a live film mix as part of THE WHOLE SHEBANG: TAKEN BY NIGHT 2015, November 26, 27 & 28th, 2015 - 918 Bathurst St. Toronto, presented by Dreamwalker Dance Company.
The Whole Shebang 2015 invites audiences into an enchanted, mysterious, multi-sensory, interdisciplinary performance experience as they journey through the hours of night. Created by Andrea Nann and Helen Yung, featuring artists: Sarah Chase, Brendan Wyatt, Kate Holden, Tom Kuo, Elysha Poirier, Clea Minaker, Lauren Gilles, Michael Ondaatje, Jenn E. Norton, Peter Mettler, Marie-Josee Chartier, Oh Susanna, Veronica Tennant, John Gzowski, Anne Bourne, Andy Maize, Joshua Van Tassel and Simon Rossiter.
Cinema Spoutnik in Geneva
Gambling, Gods and LSD and The End Of Time will be presented at Cinema Spoutnik, Geneva, at 8:30pm on November 3rd, 2015 & 9:30pm on November 4th, 2015. Gambling, Gods and LSD will be shown from a brand-new DCP print, premiering for the very first time in Europe. This event is part of GVA Sessions, organized by dance company Gilles Jobin, with Peter Mettler in person.
Retrospective at Doc Buenos Aires
Retrospective at DOC BUENOS AIRES, "Peter Mettler: Journeys through the Light", October 15-28th, 2015. With a Master Class "Peter Mettler: Cinema as Search and Discover," October 19th, 2015, 7pm at Universidad del Cine. Information on Mettler's Master Class in English and Spanish.
Peter Mettler to be a jury member at Imagine Science Film Festival
Peter Mettler will participate as a jury member of Imagine Science Film Festival, New York City, Oct 16-24th, 2015.
Peter Mettler at CERN Swizterland
October 31 - November 6, 2015 – Geneva, Switzerland
Peter Mettler will participate in Quantum: Seminar & Research Workshop for Artists & Scientists -- GVA Sessions 2015 Made in Meyrin: "Choreography in the Quantum Space" taking place at CERN Laboratories, home of the Large Hadron Collider.
Guests and speakers include: Gilles Jobin, Choreographer (CH); Nicholas Chanon, CERN physicist and CNRS researcher (FR); Monica Bello, Head of Arts@Cern (ES); Carla Scaletti Composer and software designer (USA); Minerva Muños Physicist and Choreographer (MX); Peter Mettler, Filmmaker (CAN); Sara Camnasio, Astronomer (USA). Open to artists and scientists!
Yoshtoyoshto World Premiere at Videoex
May 30, 2015 – Videoex Festival at Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zürich, Switzerland
YOSHTOYOSHTO: A live divination with Moving Image, Music and Story.
Peter Mettler debuts a new live audio-visual performance at Videoex on May 30th, featuring acclaimed author and anthropologist Jeremy Narby (The Cosmic Serpent, Intelligence In Nature) and musician Franz Treichler (The Young Gods).
A filmmaker, a musician and an anthropologist fuse their arts in a live alchemical improvisation, feeding off one another in real time, drawing from our shared human existence, saturated with knowledge, sound and image. This 3-way fusion mixes hypnotic technologies with oral tradition. It transforms and re-contextualizes self-made and collected materials. In so doing, it engages in a kind of divination of the mediated world’s ‘unconscious’.
Upcoming screenings of Petropolis
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands will be presented at The Power Plant Gallery, Toronto, as part of "Extraction Empire," curated by Charles Stankievech.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands will also be presented in Bristol, UK, as part of the exhibition Soil Culture.
Peter Mettler and Philip Groning in Conversation
A discussion curated by Yelling Five between filmmakers Philip Groning and Peter Mettler as they meet for the first time on stage.
Retrospective at DOCMA Madrid
April 7–28, 2015 – Madrid, Spain
DOCMA Madrid presents a retrospective and master class with Peter Mettler in person as part of their 3XDOC series! Featuring screenings of Gambling, Gods and LSD, Scissere, Picture of Light, Balifilm, Petropolis, and The End Of Time.
2014
Peter Mettler at RIDM Montreal
Peter Mettler will be at RIDM - Montreal International Documentary Festival, from November 15-17, 2014, participating in the Talent Lab and a conference about Social Impact Through Documentary.
Peter Mettler joins the jury of Festival dei Popoli 2014
Peter Mettler will be an official jury member at Florence Festival Dei Popoli Documentary Festival, November 28th to December 5th, 2014.
Live image mixing performance at Architextures
Peter Mettler will be performing live cinema at ROUND Venue (152A Augusta Ave. Toronto) as part of Archi-Textures on November 6th, 2014 with DJs Tom Kuo and Mike Lambert. Doors at 10pm.
Doc Institute presents a master class with Peter Mettler
Doc Institute presents: Master Class with Peter Mettler
Moderated by José Teodoro
Camera Bar (1028 Queen St W.), Toronto, Canada
November 20, 2014 – 6:30pm – 8:30pm
This intimate professional development series focuses on the craft and art of documentary media. Celebrated documentary filmmakers and other acclaimed pros (including editors, cinematographers and sound design) share their expertise and experiences. Incorporating elements of narrative and experimental cinema, traditional documentary and essay, the films of Peter Mettler are bold and mesmerizing. Reflecting on his 30-year career, Mettler will speak to the art of improvisation in documentary filmmaking. Mettler will discuss his strategies for preparing for the unexpected and how he’s developed his instincts in the editing suite. Alternating between clips, conversation and practical advice, this master class will provide participants with insights into the working methods and philosophy of this truly singular filmmaker.
World Premiere of Broken Land at Locarno
The new film Broken Land (Switzerland, 2014, 75 minutes), by Stéphanie Barbey & Luc Peter will receive its World Premiere at Locarno International Film Festival's Semaine de la Critique on August 14th & 15th, 2014. Peter Mettler worked on Broken Land as cinematographer and creative consultant and will be present at this premiere. Visit the film’s website at http://www.brokenland.ch/
The End Of Time wins award at Ecofest
The End Of Time received the top prize for Best Photography at Ecofest – International Festival of Ecology Films – Romania 2014.
Christian Williams also recently published an article on the film in Utne Reader – read it here!
New: Peter Mettler on Facebook!
Join our Peter Mettler Facebook Page! Like and share with friends to receive updates, contests and exclusive content in the months to come.
And for updates on The End Of Time, like the film on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
Peter Mettler spotlight at Festival Internacional Documentales, Santiago
June 27-29, 2014 – Santiago, Chile
The films of Peter Mettler will be featured at Festival Internacional Documentales Santiago Chile, featuring Balifilm, Eastern Avenue, Gambling, Gods and LSD, Picture of Light, and The End Of Time. Full details and schedule here.
Peter Mettler Online Retrospective at DA Films
Watch Peter Mettler’s online retrospective from April 21 to May 4 at DAFilms.com for free!
Featuring Balifilm, Picture of Light, Scissere, Eastern Avenue, Gambling, Gods and LSD, Petropolis, Away, and The End Of Time.
Peter Mettler at Gimme Some Truth Film Festival
March 20–23, 2014 – Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Peter Mettler will be participating in this year's Gimme Some Truth Documentary Festival!
Thursday, March 20, 2014, 7pm – Winnipeg Cinematheque – screening of Picture of Light & Petropolis
Friday, March 21, 2014, 9pm – Winnipeg Cinematheque – screening of The End of Time
Saturday, March 22, 2014, 2:30pm - University of Winnipeg Convocation Hall – Personal & Political Filmmaking panel
Sunday, March 23, 2014, 11am – Winnipeg Cinematheque – Master class
Petropolis included as part of Neil Young’s concert tour, “Honor the Treaties”
Petropolis accompanies Neil Young’s Honor the Treaties Tour, a four concert tour that aims to raise environmental awareness and money for First Nations people affected by the rapidly expanding Alberta oilsands development. "It is the most devastating thing you will ever see." – Neil Young
Watch Honor the Treaties: Neil Young's 'Mother Earth' Video Exclusive on The Huffington Post.
Watch the condensed version of Petropolis that accompanies the tour below.
Neil Young performing at Massey Hall, Toronto.
“Nothing But Time”: An essay by José Teodoro in Film Comment
Film Comment recently published an essay by Toronto writer and critic José Teodoro about the films of Peter Mettler. Read it here!
The End Of Time screens at Cinema Detroit
The End Of Time screened in Detroit January 10/11/12 & 16th, 2014.
For more information visit Cinema Detroit.
2013
Upcoming screenings this fall
The End Of Time opens theatrically in NYC Friday November 29th, 2013 through Thursday December 5th, 2013 at Film Society of Lincoln Center!
“Few things are as simultaneously terrifying and liberating as the notion of time’s relativity—that the measure of our hours and days is but a construct to manage what’s actually endless chaos. Peter Mettler’s ruminative, frequently astounding essay film doesn’t just contemplate this notion; it aims to cinematically embody it. From the sun’s surface to the deep earth, Hawaiian volcanoes to Detroit’s decay, Mettler explores the different ways that we experience and define time, using his own documentary as a mind-bending demonstration of its mutability. […] After the film hits its peak with a trippy composite of previously seen shapes and patterns—a Stan Brakhage-worthy abstraction that dares to suggest infinity—even tedium suddenly seems precious. It leaves you without the net of linear temporality, frightened and freed by the implications.”
Read a review of The End Of Time in Time Out Magazine here.
UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art in Brooklyn, New York will host a workshop with Peter Mettler moderated by writer Giampaolo Bianconi on Sunday, November 17, 2013 at 7:30pm.
The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC will present Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands on November 13 at 7pm in the Corcoran’s Frances and Armand Hammer Auditorium. The screening will be followed by a Q&A.
The White Light Festival in NYC will screen The End Of Time on November 9 at 6:30pm in the Walter Reade Theatre. Q&A to follow.
Film Society of Lincoln Center in NYC will present “PICTURES OF LIGHT” a retrospective of several of Peter Mettler's films from November 8-12, 2013. Read the Lincoln Center’s Press Release here!
The Swiss Foundation of Photography in Winterthur, Switzerland will screen Picture of Light with a retrospective of Emil Schulthess on October 23,.
More festival screenings announcements for The End Of Time
DOCVILLE INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL, Belgium, May 3-11, 2013
FESTIVAL DE LASALLE CONTRECHAMPS, France, May 8-11, 2013
PLANETE DOC, Poland, May 11-19, 2013
Peter Mettler in Attendance
SF DOCFEST, USA, June 7-23, 2013
EUROPEAN FILM FESTIVAL PALIC, Serbia, July 13-19, 2013
FABULOUS FESTIVAL OF FRINGE FILMS, Canada, August 1-5, 2013
POSSIBLE WORLDS FILM FESTIVAL, Australia, August 8-20, 2013
DOKUFEST, Kosovo, August 17-25, 2013
FILMAMBIENTE INT. ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL, Brazil, August 30 - September 5, 2013
QUADRANGLE FILM FEST, UK, September 6-8, 2013
SCIENCE PARK AMSTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL, Netherlands, September 12-19, 2013
SITGES FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DE CINEMA FANTASTIC DE CATALUNYA, Spain, October 11-20, 2013
SWISS FOUNDATION OF PHOTOGRAPHY, Switzerland, October 23, 2013
WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL, USA, October 24 - November 23, 2013
UCD SCIENCE EXPRESSION, IRELAND, November 3, 2013
CONCORAN GALLERY of ART, USA, November 13, 2013
The End of Time at Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center
The End of Time will screen at Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center in New Orleans as part of the Dalai Lama Film Series, May 7-18, 2013.
Retrospective, Exhibitions and Master Class at Planete + Doc Film Festival
May 10-19, 2013 – Poland
Planete + Doc Film Festival will present a retrospective of Peter's work, including a master class, two gallery exhibitions and a live cinema performance with Fred Frith. For more information on programming click here.
Live Performance with Biosphere at Hot Docs Festival, Toronto
Peter Mettler is this year’s Focus On subject at Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. Alongside Norwegian musician Biosphere, Mettler will present a lyrical, spellbinding, live and improvised performance.
Mettler’s live image mixing practice is a unique, unscripted art form that combines the editing and processing of raw visual materials and music into a singular viewing event. Paired with the ambient musical textures of renowned artist Biosphere, this event promises to be a memorable one.
BIOSPHERE & PETER METTLER: LIVE CINEMA Sound/Image Mixing Performance
April 28, 2013 at 7:30PM at The Royal Cinema, Toronto. For tickets click here.
Also catch the following screenings of Peter’s films:
Petropolis and Eastern Avenue – April 29, 2013, 6:30PM at Innis Town Hall, Toronto. For tickets click here.
Picture of Light – May 2, 2013, 6:30PM at Innis Town Hall, Toronto. For tickets click here.
Special Effects in The End of Time – TouchDesigner interview with Peter
For a look at the technology behind the special effects sequence in The End of Time, check out this blog entry about the video mixing tool built in TouchDesigner by Derivative founder Greg Hermanovic, including an interview with Peter and Greg.
Swiss Film Award Nomination
We're pleased to announce that The End of Time has been nominated for a Swiss Film Award in three categories: Best Documentary, Best Film Score and Best Cinematography! More info.
The End of Time in Paris
The End of Time will screen in Paris, France at FONDATION SUISSE/ARCHITECTE LE CORBUSIER on February 27, 2013. More info.
“Focus On” Retrospective at Hot Docs Festival, Toronto
Hot Docs Festival will pay tribute to Peter Mettler in 2013 with this year’s Focus On retrospective. More Info.
Peter Mettler on CBC Radio’s Airplay
Peter recently spoke with Airplay of CBC Yukon about his latest film, The End Of Time. Listen to the short interview here.
Peter Mettler and Liz Czach at Metro Cinema, Edmonton
Join Metro Cinema and University of Alberta Film Studies professor Liz Czach for a free informal discussion/presentation with Peter Mettler. Covering his exploration-oriented personal documentary work such as Picture of Light and Gambling, Gods and LSD, as well as his latest film The End Of Time.
Metro Cinema, Edmonton AB
Sat. Feb. 9 at 4PM
More info
Mettler will also be introducing and hosting a Q & A after a screening of The End Of Time.
Metro Cinema, Edmonton, AB
Friday, February 8, 2013 at 7PM
More info
Presented in collaboration with FAVA, the Film and Video Arts Society; and with AMPIA the Alberta Media Productions Industries Association.
Peter Mettler at Available Light Festival, Dawson City
Peter heads north with The End Of Time!
AVAILABLE LIGHT FILM FESTIVAL, YUKON
Feb 4-10, 2013
With Peter Mettler in Attendance!
The End Of Time will also screen in Dawson City, followed by a Q&A with Peter.
Feb 3, 2013
More Info.
Also in Dawson City, Mettler will give an artist talk at the KIAC on February 4, 2013.
More festival screenings of The End Of Time
ACADEMIA FILM OLOMOUC SCIENCE DOC, Czech Republic, April 16 - April 21, 2013
CINEMA PLANETA, Mexico, April 16-21, 2013
BAFICI, Buenos Aires, April 10-21, 2013 – Peter Mettler in Attendance!
WISCONSIN FILM FESTIVAL, WI, USA, April 11-18, 2013
THE SARASOTA FILM FESTIVAL, FL, USA, April 5-14, 2013
EUROPE AUTOUR DE L'EUROPE, March 13 - April 14, 2013
CINEMA DU REEL FILM FESTIVAL, France, March 21-31, 2013
ANNAPOLIS FILM FESTIVAL, MI, USA, March 21-24, 2013
ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL, MD, USA, March 19-24, 2013
FICUNAM, Mexico, February 21 - March 3, 2013
AVAILABLE LIGHT FILM FESTIVAL, YUKON, February 4-10, 2013 – Peter Mettler in Attendance!
SOLOTHURN FILMTAGE, SWITZERLAND, January 24-31, 2013
PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, January 3-14, 2013 – Peter Mettler in Attendance!
The End of Time theatrical run extended at TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto
The End of Time’s Canadian Theatrical Run at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto has been EXTENDED until January 13, 2013!
Check local listings for showtimes here.
2012
Theatrical Release of The End of Time this December!
The Canadian Theatrical Release of The End of Time starts on 12/12/12 = December 12, 2012!
TORONTO - TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX , 350 King St. West.
Daily Showtimes: 12:15, 3:00, 6:15, 8:45
Check Local Listings here.
MONTREAL - EX-CENTRIS, 3536 Saint Laurent Blvd.
Check Local Listings here.
The End of Time is also showing in theaters in Switzerland. Please check local venues for ongoing schedules.
Festival Screenings of The End Of Time
FESTIVAL DEL FILM LOCARNO, August 1-11, 2012
World Premiere – Peter Mettler in Attendance
** WINNER – Premio Qualita di Vita Award **
TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Sept 6 - 16, 2012
North American Premiere
Official Selection Masters – Peter Mettler in Attendance
ATLANTIC FILM FESTIVAL, Sept 13 - 20, 2012
Peter Mettler in Attendance
VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Sept. 27 - Oct. 12, 2012
Canadian Images
BUSAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Oct. 4 - 13, 2012
Wide Angle - Documentary Showcase
JIHLAVA INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL, Oct 23 - 28, 2012
** WINNER – Best World Documentary **
DOK LEIPZIG, Oct. 29 - Nov. 4, 2012
International Competition – Peter Mettler in Attendance
RENCONTRES INTERNATIONAL DU DOCUMENTAIRE DE MONTREAL, Nov. 7, 2012
Opening Night Film – Peter Mettler in Attendance
IMAGINE SCIENCE FILM FESTIVAL, Nov. 8, 2012
Opening Night Film
CPH:DOX COPENHAGEN, Nov 1 - 11, 2012
International Competition – Peter Mettler in Attendance
FESTIVAL DEI POPOLI, FLORENCE, Nov 10 - 17, 2012
International Competition – Peter Mettler in Attendance
INTERNATIONAL DOC FILM FESTIVAL AMSTERDAM, Nov 14 - 25, 2012
Reflecting Images Masters – Peter Mettler in Attendance
43rd INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF INDIA, GOA, Nov 20 - Nov 30, 2012
Festival Kaleidoscope – Producer, Ingrid Veninger in Attendance
AROUND THE WORLD IN 14 FILMS BERLIN, Nov 30 - Dec 8, 2012
Peter Mettler in Attendance
More festival announcements to come soon!
Peter Mettler Interviewed at Festival dei Popoli
Peter was recently interviewed while at the Festival del Popoli in Italy. Watch the video here.
Interview with The Seventh Art
The Seventh Art interviewed Mettler during TIFF 2012. Here is an excerpt from YouTube:
An excerpt from an interview with filmmaker PETER METTLER, who presented THE END OF TIME at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. View the full interview at http://www.theseventhart.org
The Seventh Art is a Toronto-based video magazine about cinema.
Interview with Cinemascope
Cinemascope recently published an essay on The End of Time followed by an interview with Peter Mettler. Read it here.
Also have a look at this review of The End of Time by The Globe and Mail.
Mettler Working with Derivative Inc.
Mettler is continuing work in the development of new image-mixing software with Greg Hermanovic of Derivative Inc. Ongoing development sessions take place with various Toronto musicians, DJs and visual artists exploring new relationships of sound and image in live performance.
Tectonic Plates at Luminato Festival
Peter Mettler's 1992 adaptation of a theatrical work by Robert Lepage screened in Toronto as part of the Luminato Festival. More information here.
Balifilm featured online at Doc Alliance Films
June 21, 2012 was Music Day across Europe! Doc Alliance Films selected Balifilm to showcase as part of the celebration. Check it out here.
Meteorologies live performance at Videoex
June 3, 2012, 9:30PM – Videoex Festival, Zürich, Switzerland
Performance of Meterologies, with Fred Frith in homage to Andreas Züst. For more information click here.
Meterologies live performance at CCS Paris
May 30-31, 2012 8PM – Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, France
Performance of Meterologies, with Fred Frith in homage to Andreas Züst. For more information click here.
Peter Mettler featured in 24 Images Magazine
Peter Mettler's work was featured in the April/May edition of film magazine 24 Images. Have a look here.
Mettler Retrospective at Cinémathèque Québécoise
May 2-6, 2012 – Montreal, Canada
Featured screenings of Mettler's body of work, a photo exhibition, a Master Class and a live performance with Peter Mettler and Fred Frith.
National Parks Project: Gros Morne
Peter Mettler will be the cinematographer for National Parks Project: Gros Morne. For more information visit the National Parks Project website.
2011
Petropolis at The Royal Cinema
May 9, 2011 – The Royal Cinema, 608 College Street, Toronto
York University Department of Film, Norman Jewison Series 2010/11 in collaboration with Greenpeace Canada and Faculty of Art, OCAD University present Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands. Admission is FREE! Filmmaker in attendance.
A Simple Rhythm at Hot Docs
Grimthorpe Film's own Tess Girard will present her new film A Simple Rhythm at Hot Docs Festival, Toronto.
April 29, 2011 - 7PM – The Royal Cinema
May 7, 2011 - 6:30PM – Cumberland 3
May 8, 2011 - 3:45PM – The ROM Theatre
For more information click here. To watch the trailer for A Simple Rhythm click here.
Live performance at Blue Dot, Open Ears Festival
Saturday, April 30, 2011 – Kitchener, ON
Open Ears Festival presents Blue Dot: An all-night multimedia art extravaganza that incorporates sculpture installations, DJ and live performances. Participants include Peter Mettler, the klezmer band Valody, and curator Patti Schmidt.
For more information click here.
Petropolis and Balifilm at the Art Gallery of Hamilton
Saturday, April 23, 2011 – Art Gallery of Hamilton (123 King St. W.), Hamilton
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands will be shown at the AGH with Balifilm, curated by Dan Browne. Peter Mettler will be in attendance to take part in an audience Q&A following the screening.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands wins award
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands was a winner of the Canadian Environmental Media Awards, presented at the Green Living show, on April 16, 2011.
Doc Night Out – Documentary Organization of Canada Panel
April 11, 2011 – 6:30-9:00PM – The Annex Live (296 Brunswick Ave.), Toronto
Documentary and NGOs Panel – Documentary Organization of Canada. FREE for DOC Members / $10 for Non-Members.
Please join us for a discussion with filmmakers Lalita Krishna, Liz Marshall, and Peter Mettler on the experiences of making films with NGOs. The discussion will be moderated by filmmaker Katie McKenna. For more information click here.
Ryerson M.I.A. Student Lecture Series
February 1, 2011 – Ryerson University, Toronto
Screening of Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands, followed by Peter Mettler will be in conversation with Marc Glassman.
For more information click here.
2010
Constellation Young Gods screening, performance and workshop
December 9-12, 2010 – Centre Culturel Suisse Paris, France
A celebration of improvised music, art and activism. Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands will be screened on Thursday, December 9th, followed by "Art and Activism", a seminar with Jeremy Narby. On Friday, December 10th, Mettler will be performing live, improvised images with music performed by Vincent Hänni and Gabriel Scotti. For more information, click here.
Peter Mettler Retrospective – Filmmaker in Focus at Festival dei Popoli 2010
November 13-20, 2010 – Festival dei Popoli, Florence, Italy
Featuring screenings of Mettler's body of work:
Sunday, November 14th – Picture of Light – Odeon Cinema, 3:00 pm
Monday, November 15th – Gregory, Lancalot Freely, Eastern Avenue – Spazio Uno, 5:30 pm
Tuesday, November 16th – Tectonic Plates – Spazio Uno, 5:00 pm
Wednesday, November 17th – The Top of His Head – Spazio Uno, 5:00 pm
Thursday, November 18th – Balifilm, Scissere – Spazio Uno, 3:00 pm
Friday, November 19th – Gambling, Gods and LSD – Spazio Uno, 9:00 pm
For more information click here. For photos and coverage of the festival, please click here.
Notations For the End of Time exhibition in Florence
An exhibition showcasing Mettler's latest photography, in connection to his new film The End of Time.
Co-presented by Festival dei Popoli
Museo Marino Marini
Piazza San Pancrazio, Florence
Opening Reception: Sunday, November 14, 2010, 11:30am.
For more information click here.
Petropolis now available on DVD and iTunes in Canada
Petropolis is now available for sale on DVD in Canada. Distributed by Mongrel Media, you can find it in stores across the country. Click here for more information.
Petropolis is also now available for download on iTunes Canada.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at Kino Otok Film Fest
Sept 8-12, 2010 – Isola, Slovenia
Live performance at Electric Eclectics Festival
August 1st, 2010 – Meaford, Ontario
Live image mix performance with Lester Alfonso, and live music by Anne Bourne (cello) and Tom Kuo (DJ) at Electric Eclectics Festival.
Click here for more details.
Peter Mettler in person at Era New Horizons Film Festival
July 22 - August 1, 2010 – Wroclaw, Poland
Mettler will be a guest to the festival as a jury member for the program "Films About Art."
The festival will also feature screenings of Petropolis and Balifilm.
Petropolis wins award at Trento Film Festival
Petropolis was presented at Trento Film Festival in Italy, where it received the Bruno Cagol Award. For more information click here.
Petropolis reviewed in Cinemascope
Petropolis is reviewed by Jerry White in this month's issue of Cinemascope. Pick up your copy or check out the article here.
Genie Nomination for Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands
Petropolis was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Short Documentary from the Academy of Canadian Film and Television. The 30th Annual Genie Awards are held April 12th, 2010. For more information click here.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands review in NOW
NNNNN (five stars) from NOW Magazine for the Petropolis DVD Release from Mongrel Media. Click here.
“Simply by flying over the Athabasca tar sands and capturing both the natural and industrialized environment, Peter Mettler creates an ecological horror story that's also a highly watchable excursion into abstracts of colour, form and texture. Opening shots of forest and river give way to the blighted landscape of giant open-pit mines, massive factories and waste water ponds. Twisted shapes and sickly hues fill the screen; when Mettler pans to include something recognizable, we realize the immensity of the industrial blight.” – Andrew Dowler
Picture of Light screening at Metro Cinema, Edmonton
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 – Metro Cinema, Edmonton, AB, Canada
Special screening of Picture of Light. For more information click here.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands in Buenos Aires
For all our Argentinean friends, Petropolis will be screening in the 12th annual BAFICI Film Festival:
April 8th, 2010, 17:00h – Cine Hoyts Abasto
April 10th, 2010, 12:24h – Cine Hoyts Abasto
April 12th, 2010, 13:15 – Cine Hoyts Abasto
For more information click here.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands in Waterloo
April 22, 2010, 7:30 pm – Waterloo Collegiate Institute (300 Hazel Street), Waterloo, ON, Canda
Join us for a special Earth Day Screening of Petropolis presented by the Princess Cinemas!
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at Ann Arbor
Sunday March 28, 2010, 3:00pm – Michigan Theatre, Ann Arbor
Petropolis screens at the 48th Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival! For more information click here.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at MOMA New York
Petropolis screens as part of the Canadian Front Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, USA.
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1
Friday, March 19, 2010, 6:00 p.m.
Monday, March 22, 2010, 4:00 p.m
11 West Fifty-third Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, New York City
Picture of Light screening in Montreal
March 14, 2010 – de Sève Cinema (1400 de Maisonneuve West, LB-125), Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
As part of Les Nords Magnetiques exhibition at the The Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery at Concordia University, Picture of Light will be screening on its original 35mm print. Admission is free.
Live performance as part of Shostokovich: A Portrait
February 12–13, 2010 – Enwave Theatre, Toronto
The acclaimed Art of Time Ensemble, under the Artistic Direction of Andrew Burashko, is pleased to present a celebration of Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the greatest composers of the 20th century.
Featuring music performed by the Art of Time Ensemble and dance by Andrea Nann, with live projections by Peter Mettler.
Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront Centre
231 Queens Quay West, Toronto
Tickets: $19, $39 and $49 ($25 - Student/Senior/Artist)
Box Office: 416-973-4000
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at The Royal, Toronto
INVITE YOUR FRIENDS! We're excited to announce that Petropolis will have a short theatrical release at The Royal Theatre (608 College St.), Toronto. Screenings as follows:
Friday 22nd January - 7:00pm
Saturday 23rd January - 7:00pm
Sunday 24th January - 4:30pm & 7:00pm
Monday 25th January - 7:00pm
Tuesday 26th January - 7:00pm
Wednesday 27th January - 7:00pm
Tickets at The Royal Box Office: $10 - general admission / $8 - students and seniors
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at IFFR
Petropolis will be screening at the 39th Rotterdam International Film Festival, held from January 27 - February 7, 2010.
Peter Mettler on CBC’S The Hour
Watch CBC Tevevision’s The Hour this week to see George Stroumboulopoulos interview Peter Mettler about Petropolis.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives… at Solothurner Filmtage
We are proud to announce that Petropolis will be playing at Solothurner Filmtage in Solothurn, Switzerland.
Screening dates and times:
January 22, 2010, 12:00 – Cinema Canva
January 25, 2010, 12:00 – Cinema Reithalle
2009
Peter interviewed by Marc Glassman in POV Magazine
A two-part feature interview on Peter Mettler by Marc Glassman will appear in Issues 75 & 76 (Fall and Winter 2009) of Point Of View Magazine. Peter talks about his creative process, from working as a cinematographer for Atom Egoyan to directing the acclaimed feature docs Picture of Light and Gambling, Gods and LSD.
The Sound of Insects receives an award from the European Film Academy
Congratulations to Peter Liechti's The Sound of Insects - Record of A Mummy for receiving the 2009 European Film Academy Documentary Prix Arte.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at CPH:DOX
November 15th at 14:45 – Cinemateket 70 DKK – Copenhagen, Denmark
Petropolis screens at CPH:DOX Festival, alongside A Man Screaming is not a Dancing Bear.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at Festival dei Popoli
Petropolis screens on the following dates at Festival dei Popoli, Florence:
Thursday, November 5th, 2009, at 8 pm
Saturday, November 7th, 2009, at 11.30 am
The jury of Festival dei Popoli generously awarded Petropolis the Prize for Distribution from the Fondazione Ente dello Spettacolo. This prize is intended to promote the distribution of a socially minded film in Italy. A bursary of 5,000 Euros will go to its distributor, Autlook.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at Vancouver IFF
Petropolis screens on the following dates at Vancouver International Film Festival:
Thursday, October 15th, 2009, at 11:00am – Vancity Theatre, $8.00
Friday, October 16th, 2009, at 7:00pm – Vancity Theatre, $8.00
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at Ghent
Petropolis screens on the following dates at Flanders International Film Festival Ghent:
Thursday, October 8, 2009, at 17:30 – Vooruit - Theaterzaal
Tuesday, October 12, 2009, at 20:15 – Vooruit - Theaterzaal
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at FNC
Petropolis screens on the following dates at Festival de Nouveau Cinema, Montreal:
Friday, October 16, 2009, at 7:15pm – Cinema du Parc 2
Sat, Oct 17, 2009, at 3pm – Cinema Parallèle
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at Dok Leipzig
Petropolis screens on the following dates at Dok Leipzig, Germany:
Wednesday, October 28, 2009, at 5pm.
Friday, October 30, 2009, at 10:15pm.
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at TIFF
Petropolis receives its North American Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival!
Screenings:
Sunday, September 13th, 2009, 2:30pm – AMC2 – Panel Discussion to Follow Screening
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009, 10pm – Jackman Hall - AGO
Saturday, September 19th, 2009, 6pm – Varsity 7
The film has been recieved with glowing reviews, in such places as Macleans, Now Magazine (Rating: NNNN), Toronto Sun, Playback Magazine, and a feature article in POV Magazine!
Please join us for an after-party for the film’s premiere on Sunday, September 13th. Come for a drink, dance into the night, and celebrate together on the lakeshore. With musical performances by: Gabriel Scotti, Ann Bourne, Shen, Tom Kuo, Mike Lambert, Zumba, and a visual Installation by Blankfoto.
The Royal Canadian Legion #344, 1395 Lakeshore Blvd. W (Between Dufferin and Roncesvalles.)
Sunday, September 13th, 4pm - 2am
FREE (donations to Greenpeace are encouraged)
“Memorizer: The Collector Andreas Züst” – In memoriam exhibition
May 29 - August 9, 2009 – Aargauer Kunsthaus, Zürich, Switzerland
Peter contributes a video installation in the memory of Andreas Züst (1947 – 2000), producer of Picture of Light, for this special exhibition.
“Andreas Züst (1947 – 2000) was an art collector, scientist, photographer, painter, nighthawk, publisher, film producer, bibliomaniac, scientist and patron of the arts. From the late 1970s until his death he documented, with his camera and as a collector, the Zurich arts and cultural scene with its extensive connections, disregarding any status differences or distinctions between subculture and popular culture. His art collection of over 1’500 works combines internationally renowned artists such as Fischli / Weiss, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Markus Raetz, Dieter Roth, André Thomkins, William Copley, Sigmar Polke, Annelies Štrba, Nan Goldin and Boris Mikhailov with local heroes such as Friedrich Kuhn and Anton Bruhin, as well as lesser known artists and outsiders.
“Andreas Züst was a collector of stories, of art, of attitudes and events. As a ‘memorizer’ he recorded everything that was of interest to him and that made up his life. His photo archive and collection constitute a unique art and cultural historical record and a treasure trove of stories of an entire generation.
”Since 2004 the collection of Andreas Züst is on permanent loan to the Aargauer Kunsthaus. In collaboration with his daughter Mara Züst, the works of art from his extensive collection will be presented for the first time in an exhibition. They include numerous photographic works by Andreas Züst himself that document scenes from various worlds with their manifold cross-linkages. Filmed interviews with individuals close to the collector will round off the exhibition.”
Opening: Thursday May 28, 2009
INIT live performance
June 13, 2009 – Toronto, Canada
Live audio visual performance alongside a great roster of Toronto performers. 5pm until late.
Videoex and Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology
May 31st, 2009 – Zürich, Switzerland
Discussion moderated by Marcy Goldberg, live image mixing performance with Fred Frith, including a screening of Balifilm.
Part of ADVANCED CINEMA LIFE series, Kunstraum Walcheturm, Kanonengasse 20, 8004 Zürich, Switzerland.
For more information click here.
World premiere of Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands at Visions du Réel – Winner of the Prix du Jury du Jeune Publique!
April 26 & 28, 2009 – Nyon, Switzerland
The World Premiere of Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands was held in the International Competition programme at Visions Du Réel Festival. Screenings were preceded by a presentation and followed by a discussion.
At the end of the festival, it was announced that Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands received the Prix du Jury du Jeune Publique Award!
LIFT Workshop Panel Discussion: Documentary as Art Practice
Tuesday, February 17th, 7pm, 2009 – NFB Cinema at National Film Board of Canada, Toronto
A panel of renowned artists who have invested themselves in the methods and discourses of documentary - with diverse and challenging results. The panelists focused on the tensions and supports between communicating a narrative content and maintaining artistic rigor. Panelists included Gisele Gordon, Ali Kazimi, and Peter Mettler. Moderated by Brenda Longfellow.
Rotterdam screenings of The Sound of Insects, Picture of Light, Balifilm, and National Parks Project: Gros Morne
January 24–30, 2009 – International Film Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands
Peter Liechti is honoured as the 'Filmmaker in Focus' at the 2009 Rotterdam International Film Festival. Liechti’s newest film, The Sound of Insects - Record of a Mummy, narrated by Peter Mettler, will screen as part of the 'Signals’ programme.
24-Jan-09, Cinerama 4, 12:30
28-Jan-09, Cinerama 1, 14:30
30-Jan-09, Doelen Jurriaanse Zaal, 10:30
As part of his Retrospective, Peter Liechti will also present a special 'carte blanche' screening that will include Picture of Light and Balifilm.
Peter’s most recent cinematography project, National Parks Project: Gros Morne (2009), will also be screening in the Spectrum: Shorts programme:
25-Jan-09, Lantaren 1, 20:00
27-Jan-09, Lantaren 2, 14:45
HEAD Workshop
January 20-21, 2009 – Geneva, Switzerland
Peter will be participating in a two-day workshop for students at HEAD (formerly Haut D'Ecole D'Art et de Design) in Geneva.
2008
Live image mixing performance at Kunnstraum Walcheturm
December 31st, 2008 – Zürich, Switzerland
Visuals by Tomas & Peter Mettler, with music by DJ Styro, Bang Goes, Sampayo, Pat Patrischa, Playlove, Beatnik, and Zumba.
Tonal Topography live performance
September 5th, 2008 – St. Stephen in the Fields Church, Toronto, Canada
Peter performs a live image mixing set alongside Deadbeat, live painting by Android Jones and others. Presented by Suma.
The Sound of Insects - Record of a Mummy
Peter Mettler will contribute voiceover for Peter Liechti’s new film The Sound of Insects – Record of a Mummy, forthcoming in 2009.
Mise En Scène
September 13 - October 11, 2008 – O’Born Contemporary Gallery, Toronto, Canada
A group photographic exhibition representing an homage to the multiple emotions and experiences that movies bring to our lives. It features a selection of photographic works by four artists: Alex Kisilevich, Vanina Feldsztein, Johnnie Eisen, and Peter Mettler. More details here.
Opening Reception: Saturday September 13th, 12-5pm.
Live image mixing performance with Fred Frith at Zwei Tage Zeit
January 19, 2008 – Zürich, Switzerland
Peter performs an improvised live mixing performance alongside music by Fred Frith, as part of an event in conjunction with The International Society for Contemporary Music
2007
Live image mixing performance: Bas-Reliefs
November 29, 30, and December 1, 2007 – Enwave Theatre, Toronto, Canada
Peter performs a live image mix as part of Chartier Danse, a multi-disciplinary collaboration from a team of eleven artists from Toronto and Montréal under the artistic direction of Marie-Josée Chartier.
Live image mixing performance at In the Mix Festival
October 26th, 2007 – Spin Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Peter contributes to the inaugural In The Mix festival with a live performance for ensemble musicians followed by DJ Tom Kuo.
Gambling, Gods and LSD in Leipzig
October 29 - November 4, 2007 – Leipzig, Germany
The 50th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film screened Gambling, Gods, and LSD during this year’s festival.
Live image mixing performance, America and the Black Angel
October 5–6, 2007 – Enwave Theatre, Toronto, Canada
Performing together with the Art of Time Ensemble, Peter Mettler's live image mix composition will be accompanied by George Crumb's Black Angel and Vox Ballanae. At The Enwave Theatre (formerly The Harbourfront Centre Theatre), 231 Queens Quay West, Toronto.
Fred Frith and Peter Mettler live image and sound performance
August 3, 2007 – La Corbiere, Laboratoire Village Nomade, Switzerland.
Fred Frith and Peter Mettler will perform a live improvised music and image mixing session at La Corbiere.
Manufactured Landscapes wins multiple awards
Manufactured Landscapes, directed by Jennifer Baichwal, and for which Peter served as Cinematographer and Creative Consultant, continues to collect awards around the world including a special prize from Al Gore!
Manufactured Landscapes is now available in Canada on DVD.
2006
“Canadian Spotlight: Peter Mettler” at the Toronto International Film Festival
September 2006 – Toronto, Canada
The Toronto International Film Festival will be honouring Peter with a retrospective of his films as part of this year’s Canadian Spotlight. In addition to multiple screenings, Peter will also perform Balifilm live with the Evergreen Gamelan Ensemble followed by an improvised image mixing performance alongside Murcof and Marc Weiser at the Berkeley Church in Toronto, for a special event entitled Elsewhere.
As part of this retrospective, TIFF is also publishing a new book on Peter’s filmmaking practice by Canadian cinema scholar Jerry White, Of This Place and Elsewhere - The Films and Photography of Peter Mettler. Details from Indiana Press here.