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Peter Mettler

Peter Mettler

Canada / Website

Biographie

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)

balifilm

Balifilm

Balifilm (Orig.) / 1997 / Canada / 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 / 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.

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Gambling, Gods and LSD

Gambling, Gods and LSD (Orig.) / 2002 / Canada, Suisse / 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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Petropolis

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

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

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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.

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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.

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News

Single Shot Indonesia

Single Shot Indonesia

Depuis plus de dix ans, le réalisateur hollandais Leonard Retel Helmrich retourne au pays natal de ses grands parents pour observer et filmer les transformations de l’Indonésie pendant les années précipitées de la mondialisation économique et culturelle. Le portail Dafilms présente tous les trois films de sa fameuse trilogie documentaire (y compris la dernière partie Position among the Stars). Avec la tension dans la société indonésienne à l’arrière-plan, la vie de la famille Shamsudinn se déroule devant la caméra de Helmrich, une famille qui dans un bidonville de Jakarta vit son histoire quotidienne, se composant du travail et des soucis, de l’amour et de la rancune mutuels. Dans la semaine du 21 mai, vous pouvez visionner les deux premières parties de la trilogie, les films The Eye of the Day et Shape of the Moon, gratuitement.

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- 21.5.2012 -

Les promesses de l’Est

Les promesses de l’Est

Cette semaine, le portail Dafilms attire ses spectateurs par une grande dose d’exotique européenne. Un voyage à travers le paysage hors du commun de l’Europe de l’Est sera offert aux spectateurs par l’intermédiaire de trois documentaires originaux. Bien que les films Le livre des records de Shutka, Problèmes avec les moustiques et Bahtalo racontent des histoires des gens dont les poches sont pour la plupart vides, n’attendez pas de lourds drames sociaux. On ne peut vivre une vie joyeuse que sans argent!

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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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