We are pleased to announce the following upcoming screenings for Fall 2020:

Picture of Light is included in Andreas Züst: Eis, an exhibition at Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland, from August 22 to November 22. View exhibition details here.

Gambling, Gods and LSD will be presented at Betriebsleiter Kino Cinématte in Bern, Switzerland, on September 11th. Screening details are listed here.

Becoming Animal will be presented at Cinematik Festival in Bratislava, Slovakia, on September 13th. Screening details are available here.

The End of Time will be presented online through Imagine Science Film Festival’s Labocine platform on September 16th, with a live Q&A by Peter. Screening details are listed here.

Scissere will be presented at the Nova Cinema in Brussels on September 20th and October 10th. Screening details are available here.

Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands will be presented at Zürich Film Festival as part of a live performance by The Young Gods, on Wednesday, September 30th, 20:45, Kosmos 6. More information TBA soon.

Picture of Light will be presented at Cineteca Madrid on October 10th. Screening details are available here.

Becoming Animal will be presented at the 18th edition of Festival Image de Ville in Marseille, France, from October 15-20th. Screening details TBA soon here.

Petropolis will be presented as part of a special program on climate entitled “Gallery of the Futures,” at BOZAR - Center of Fine Arts, Brussels, on November 24th. More details TBA soon.

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Also, Becoming Animal is now available on Vimeo On Demand (worldwide, except USA) courtesy of Maximage. Share it with your friends!

Kunstmuseum Luzern / Museum of Art Lucerne presents Eis, an exhibition dedicated to Andreas Züst, the creative collaborator and friend of Peter Mettler whose interest in the aurora borealis led the pair to make the acclaimed film Picture of Light (1994). This film is included on a loop in the gallery exhibition, alongside an extensive display of Züst’s slide photography.

Eis is curated by Eveline Suter, in cooperation with Mara Züst, and runs from August 22nd to November 22nd, 2020, with an opening on Friday August 21st. Visit the Kunstmuseum Luzern website for more info.

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“Andreas Züst (1947–2000) had an all-embracing interest in the world, ranging from the natural sciences to the art scene, and from small molecular structures to the whole wealth of human being. Züst’s omnipresent companion was the 35mm camera with which he captured and ordered the world.

“Throughout his whole life, Andreas Züst was enthusiastic about natural events. As a student of glaciology, he carried out several months of research in Greenland, undertaking, among other things, ice core drilling. He collected books and objects on the theme, illustrated volumes and expedition reports, and also Inuit carvings. He made a selection of his photographs for six slide carousels entitled “Eis” (Ice). These address the theme of Ice in its most diverse forms, as an infinite landscape or as ice crystals, as a luminous blue or as dazzling, white, freshly drifting snow, as a Polar bear gazing into the camera on an ice-covered beach or as a research station frozen over in the light of a full moon.”

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This exhibition is also accompanied by a new publication entitled Pursuit of Wonders, published by Edition Patrick Frey. The book includes a text from Peter reflecting on his relationship with Andreas, and the significance of the exhibition’s theme. More information is available from the publisher’s website.

The Canadian Film Institute’s Canadian Masters Series is an annual celebration of excellence in Canadian filmmaking, featuring extensive onstage interviews, special screenings, and audience discussions with some of the greatest names in Canadian film history.

Peter is honoured to be the CFI’s first guest for 2020. He will be interviewed by Tom McSorley with a Q&A and reception at Club SAW, followed by a screening of Picture of Light (1994) the next day at Ottawa Art Gallery. Peter will also be giving a talk for students at Carleton University.

For more information, visit the Canadian Film Institute website, or Facebook event pages.

Canadian Masters: In Conversation with Peter Mettler at Club SAW, Ottawa, ON – January 29th, 7:00pm

Picture of Light at Ottawa Art Gallery – Thursday, January 30, 7:00pm

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Picture of Light will be presented at Cinéma Spoutnik in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 17, 2019, as part of the OSMOSCOSMOS exhibition. The screening will be followed by a reading by author Peter Weber, accompanied by slides by Andreas Züst. For more information, please visit the OSMOSCOSMOS website.

Cinéma Spoutnik – 11 Rue de la Coulouvrenière, 1204 Geneva

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Andreas Züst and Peter Mettler in Churchill, Manitoba, during the filming of Picture of Light.

Lars Koens and Demelza Kooij have published a chapter on the use of sound and voice-over in Peter Mettler’s documentaries, including Picture of Light, Gambling, Gods and LSD, Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands, and The End Of Time. Their essay, “Creative Use of Voice in Non-Fiction Narrative Film” in Soundings: Documentary Film and the Listening Experience, is available as a free download from the University of Huddersfield Press. Read it here!

“Language forms an integral part of Mettler’s filmmaking process, exemplified by the diverse use of voice. […] He prefers to reveal the limits and artificiality of language, as opposed to reading out facts. For example, the voice-over in The End of Time starts with what could be regarded as a Nietzschean claim: ‘Things don’t have names, we made them all up’. Film provides an excellent ground for such philosophical explorations, only to find new boundaries of course — those of the film medium itself. In the cinema, we cannot authentically experience the Northern Lights nor feel the effects of LSD. The translation from lived to cinema experience is fundamental to Mettler’s reflexive style.” (169–170)

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