![DOC ALLIANCE [logo]](/s/img/docalliance-logo-2013.png){kind=logo}
Biography
Based both in Switzerland and Canada, Peter Mettler (born 1958, Toronto) is a strong supporter of independent creativity, having collaborated with numerous filmmakers, artists and musicians such as Werner Penzel, Michael Ondaatje, Atom Egoyan, Peter Weber, Fred Frith, Jim O'Rourke, Tom Kuo, Alexandra Rockingham Gill, Robert Lepage, Andreas Züst, and many others.
Melding intuitive processes with drama, essay, experiment or documentation, his own films hold a unique and influential position in creative expression not only in film but also in new art forms where cinema and other disciplines merge. Meditations on our world, rooted in personal experience, his works reflect the visions and wonder of their characters and audiences alike. Mettler’s films have garnered many prizes and been the focus of several retrospectives internationally.
Additional artistic activities include a wide range of ongoing engagements in music, dance and photography. Over the years Mettler has presented photographic gallery exhibitions in Europe and Canada. More recently he has been experimenting with live sound and image mixing performances with a diversity of musical artists in an extremity of locales ranging from radio theatres to dance clubs and wilderness locations. An interview with Mettler on these activities is included in the 2005 publication The VJ Book by Paul Spinrad.
Filmography:
Lancalot Freely (20´, Canada, 1980)
Scissere (88´, Canada, 1982)
Eastern Avenue (58´, Canada, 1985)
The Top of his Head (110, Canada, 1989)
Tectonic Plates (106´, Canada, 1992)
Picture of Light (83´, Switzerland/Canada, 1994)
Balifilm (30´, Canada, 1996)
Gambling, Gods and LSD (180´, Canada/Switzerland, 2002)
Away (3´, Canada, 2007)
Shostakovitch/Notes in Silence (25´, Cannada, 2007)
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands (43´, Canada, 2009)
Eastern Avenue
Eastern Avenue (Orig.) / 1985 / Canada / 87 min
An exploration of intuition, using film as a kind of audio-visual improvisation. The structure and innate "story" of the film were formed by the chronology of experiences and perceptions that emerged from a journey to Berlin, Portugal and Switzerland.
Gambling, Gods and LSD
Gambling, Gods and LSD (Orig.) / 2002 / Canada, Switzerland / 180 min
A filmmaker’s inquiry into transcendence becomes a three-hour trip across countries and cultures, interconnecting people, places and times.
Petropolis
Petropolis (Orig.) / 2009 / Canada / 43 min
An extraordinary spectacle, whose scope can only be understood from far above.
Picture of Light
Picture of Light (Orig.) / 1994 / Canada / 83 min
An hallucinatory tale which documents a filmmaker’s journey to Canada’s arctic in search of the Northern Lights.
Scissere
Scissere (Orig.) / 1982 / Canada / 83 min
While deploying a seemingly inexhaustible repertoire of optical effects, Scissere renders the experiences of a mental patient who wanders outside his institutional confines for the first time in many years. He imagines himself inside the sensibilities of three people he randomly spots at a bus station.
Comments
View comments
Add comment