Peter Mettler

For 20 years Peter Mettler has continued to create the kinds of films deemed impossible to make, yet readily appreciated once they exist. A key figure in the critical wave of 80’s Canadian filmmakers including Atom Egoyan, Bruce McDonald, Patricia Rozema, and Robert Lepage, Mettler has consistently produced works which elude categorization. Melting intuitive processes with drama, essay, experiment or documentation, his films continue to take a unique and influential position in creative expression and the merging of forms from cinema and other disciplines. Meditations on our world, rooted in personal experience, they reflect the visions and wonder of their characters and audiences alike. Mettler’s films have garnered many prizes and have been the subject of retrospectives internationally. Mettler, a Swiss-Canadian citizen, and a strong supporter of independent filmmaking, has collaborated with Werner Penzel, Michael Ondaatje, Atom Egoyan, Peter Weber, Andreas Züst, Fred Frith, Alexandra Rockingham Gill, Robert Lepage, Bruce McDonald, Patricia Rozema and many others. His various image and sound works are occasionally presented in the form of exhibition or performance. A book on his work entitled “Making the Invisible Visible” was published in 1995. A creative residency, Verein Alpenhof was established, together with a group of artists, in Appenzell Switzerland in 2001. Currently Mettler is determining what to do with all the unused material from the shooting of “Gambling, Gods and LSD.”