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Peter Mettler

Peter Mettler

Kanada / Website

Biografie

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)

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Petropolis

Petropolis (Orig.) / 2009 / Kanada / 43 min

An extraordinary spectacle, whose scope can only be understood from far above.

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Balifilm

Balifilm (Orig.) / 1997 / Kanada / 28 min

Mettler brings us into the world of the mystical and the unconscious through his exploration of this extraordinary culture.

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Eastern Avenue

Eastern Avenue (Orig.) / 1985 / Kanada / 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.

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Gambling, Gods and LSD

Gambling, Gods and LSD (Orig.) / 2002 / Kanada, Schweiz / 180 min

A filmmaker’s inquiry into transcendence becomes a three-hour trip across countries and cultures, interconnecting people, places and times.

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Picture of Light

Picture of Light (Orig.) / 1994 / Kanada / 83 min

An hallucinatory tale which documents a filmmaker’s journey to Canada’s arctic in search of the Northern Lights.

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Scissere

Scissere (Orig.) / 1982 / Kanada / 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.

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News

Single Shot Indonesia

Single Shot Indonesia

Schon seit mehr als zehn Jahren kehrt der Regisseur Leonard Retel Helmrich wieder und wieder in die Heimat seiner Urgroßeltern zurück, um die Veränderungen in Indonesien in den ungestümen Jahren der wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Globalisierung zu beobachten und auf Film zu bannen. Das Portal DAFilms zeigt nun alle drei Filme seiner bekannten Dokumentarfilmtrilogie (inklusive seines bisher letzten Werks – Position among the Stars). Vor dem Hintergrund der Spannungen in der indonesischen Gesellschaft dokumentiert Helmrichs Kamera das Leben der Familie Sjamsuddin, die in einem Armenviertel von Jakarta ihre alltägliche Geschichte aus Arbeit und Sorgen, gegenseitiger Liebe und Feindschaft erlebt. In der Woche ab dem 21.5. können Sie noch dazu die ersten zwei Filme der Trilogie – The Eye of the Day und Shape of the Moonkostenlos ansehen.

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- 21.5.2012 -

Eastern Promises

Eastern Promises

Das Portal DAFilms lockt seine Zuschauer diese Woche zu einer ordentlichen Portion europäischer Exotik. Die Zuschauer können sich gleich mit drei ungewöhnlichen Dokumentarfilmen auf die Reise durch die eigentümliche Landschaft Osteuropas begeben. Auch wenn die Filme „Shutka Book of Records“, „The Mosquito Problem“ und „Bahrtalo“ die Geschichten von Menschen erzählen, die fast am Hungertuch nagen, sind keine bedrückenden sozialen Dramen zu erwarten: Schließlich kann man nur ohne Geld ein lustiges Leben führen!

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- 14.5.2012 -

True Stories from Russia

True Stories from Russia

Watch or download films about true life in Russia: Kommunalka (free on May 7 and May 8!), Durakovo – the Village of Fools and Mr. Triska's Epoch Making Trip to Russia.

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- 8.5.2012 -

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Media - Europe loves cinema

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