We are pleased to share the following upcoming and recent screenings of Peter Mettler’s films:
2025 Screenings and Events
New details coming about the entire film While the Green Grass Grows: A Diary in Seven Parts
February 25: While the Green Grass Grows (Parts 1&6) screening at Basel Stadt KINO presented by Giuseppe Di Salvatore. Followed with director Q&A.
2024 Screenings and Events
While the Green Grass Grows (Parts 1 & 6)
A project begun in 2019 with minimal means and finances, filmed as a cinematic diary of life’s unfolding through to 2021. Mettler and newly joined Swiss co-producer Cornelia Seitler of Maximage ventured to preview 2 parts in order to raise awareness and funding opportunities for the project. The project was received with several accolades, allowing the continuation and completion of the project for release in 2025.
November 17 & 18 International cinematography film festival Ostrava Kamera Oko will screen two stunning films Manufactured Landscapes and Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands by Cinematographer and Director Peter Mettler.
November 6 Delightful Docs podcast hosted by Martin Lennon interviews Peter Mettler
November 4th Farbklang-Klangfarbe Audiovisual concert
An audiovisual concert by Peter Mettler (video) and Carlos Hidalgo (synthesizer and electronics) will take place at the Atelierhaus Birli. Videos and music will be created and mixed together in real time. The images and sounds will constantly and mutually influence each other. The result is an invitation to visual-auditory immersion.
October 28 Kino Xenix, Zürich
Preview of While the Green Grass Grows: Parts 2&3 (A Work in Progress)
Peter Mettler presents episodes 2 and 3 of his seven-part series WHILE THE GREEN GRASS GROWS as a work in progress. Episode 2 shows the encounter with the well-known anthropologist Jeremy Narby (“The Cosmic Serpent”). In Episode 3 we find ourselves in a road movie across the USA with Mettler. The destination is a city in the middle of the desert named after a game show. The action becomes the rhythm and structure of the film. Afterwards, the director talks to the audience about his major project and the connections in his work.
DOK Leipzig: Homage Peter Mettler
October 10-15, 2023 Our homage this year is dedicated to the renowned Swiss-Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler. His films create a space for exploring humanity’s search for meaning and questions about its existence in a reverent way.
Peter Mettler received the Grand Prix of Visions du Réel this year for the first two chapters of his seven-part cinematic diary "While the Green Grass Grows". These two chapters will be part of our International Competition Documentary Film.
The "Homage" programme will also include two of his earlier films: “Picture of Light” (1994), in which his team goes in search of the Northern Lights, and “Gambling, Gods and LSD” (2002), a film about people in search of transcendence and ecstasy.
In a Masterclass, Peter Mettler will provide insight into his unique, process-oriented approach to filmmaking and present previously unreleased excerpts of other instalments of “While the Green Grass Grows”. The recorded Masterclass is available at DAfilms for a short time.
10 October
10:30 Gambling, Gods and LSD
10:00 Picture of Light
20:30 While the Green Grass Grows
11 October
19:30 Picture of Light +Image Mixing Demo
12 October
15:30 Masterclass / Live stream available on DAfilms
13 October
13:30 Preview of While the Green Grass Grows (Part 1&6)
18:00 Gambling, Gods and LSD
15 October
14:30 While the Green Grass Grows
Acoustic Profiles
A Sound Ecology of the Cinema
Randolph Jordan
Oxford University Press in July 2023
Presents acoustic ecology as a media practice that can be well informed by film sound studies. Uses film sound as a material for soundscape research. Featuring a chapter on Peter Mettler’s film Picture of Light.
Cover Image: Production still of Peter Mettler from Picture of Light. Taken by Alexandra Rockingham Gill. Courtesy of Grimthorpe Film Inc.
Rarely available for streaming, Peter Mettler's Lancalot Freely: a film school short of a harsh and uncompromising portrait of a former flamboyant comrade - online access Québec, Canada only at Tenk.ca
January 21, 2023 Birli, Switzerland
LICHTUNG – VISUAL CONCERT with artists Asi Föcker, Peter Mettler, Raul Doré, Steve Heater
2022 Screenings and Events
Au Canada...Traversée documentaire: La cinémathèque du documentaire at the Bibliothèque publique d’information – Bpi of the Centre Pompidou will explore the vastness of the Canadian territory through a lineup of 65 films that resonate across time, territory, culture and community. Included in this program is Picture of Light on September 19th and October 10th.
Newly published book LIVE VISUALS surveys the key histories, theories and practice of artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, architects and technologists that have worked and continue to work with visual material in real time. Peter Mettler interviewed by Steve Gibson.
Nostalgia Trip: 2002 at Hot Docs Cinema, Toronto. Gambling, Gods and LSD screening on April 9th, featuring a special introduction by writer/critic Jose Teodoro. In true early 2000s spirit, Peter Mettler takes advantage of his digital camera to record improvised interviews and splices it with 35-mm film footage, bringing viewers everywhere from the Toronto suburbs to Vegas casinos to Transcendental communities in India. A feast for the eyes and high for the mind, this Genie-award-winning doc begs to be viewed on a big screen, where you can fully surrender to the sights and sounds of urban civilization.
On March 23, the Italian Cultural Institute (IIC) and the Consulate General of Italy in Chicago will participate in the 6th edition of the Italian Design Day dedicated to “Re-generation. Design and New Technologies for a Sustainable Future.” The Institute will present a series of films including Becoming Animal for 48 hours of free online streaming on MyMovies
Collectif Jeune Cinéma celebrates 50 years. A temporary Cinémathèque in Mains d'Oeuvres, France has been set up to screen eighty films their catalogue including Peter Mettler's Eastern Avenue. For more information on the February 12th screening please visit cjcinema.org
2021 Screenings and Events
Climate Cultures Network presents Petropolis on November 28 in Berlin. Limited tickets are available from the Babylon Theater
Peter Mettler Retrospective presented at the Vilnius Documentary Film Festival in Lithuania.
Screens for the following films will be shown between September 23rd to October 3rd: Scissere, Picture of Light, Gambling, Gods and LSD, The Top of His Head, The End of Time, Tectonic Plates, Trace of the Future, Lancalot Freely, Away, Eastern Avenue.
Petropolis screenings on September 24 and October 25 for the La Lucarne retrospective celebrating 25 years on ARTE televsion at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France. Tickets are available online
Becoming Animal screens at Schauspielhaus Zürich (CH) on June 13th, 2021. Tickets are available online.
Petropolis will be streaming online from May 27 – June 4th, 2021 by Whitechapel Gallery (UK). For more information please visit the event page.
Gambling, Gods and LSD was presented at Thessaloniki Film Festival (Greece) in a special programme entitled “Destination: Journey,” alongside works by Chantal Akerman, Werner Herzog, Aki Kaurismaki, Johan van der Keuken, Sergei Loznitsa, Chris Marker, Jonas Mekas, and others. Visit the festival website here for information, with additional coverage in POV Magazine, Greek News Agenda, Business Doc Europe, and Modern Times Review.
Becoming Animal screens at Journées cinématographiques (France) on March 17th. Visit the festival website here, and access the film directly through the Festival Scope platform. You can also view a video Q&A for the film online – click here or watch it directly below.
Becoming Animal also screens at the 18th DocuDays UA (Ukraine) in the non-competition Special Events programme on March 27, 2021. Visit the festival website here.
An hour-long Q&A with Peter Mettler about Becoming Animal.
