Peter Mettler pushes the boundaries of documentary film
Published: Thursday, Jan 4th 2024, 13:11
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Director Peter Mettler is known for his unique approach to the medium of documentary film. His works are often intuitive and sensitive and have won several awards.
Mettler was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1958 to Swiss parents. Mettler found his way into the medium during his school days, as he said in an interview with Swiss Films, the promotion agency for Swiss film. In Canada, Mettler studied film at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. The director and cameraman is credited with having a lasting influence on the cinematic documentary essay.
His films explore the limits of human perception, wrote the Visions du Réel festival about Mettler. The director follows an associative process without a preconceived script on the border between documentary film, essay and fiction. Mettler's work ranges from travel films and cinematic diaries to more traditional films that deal with the current environmental crisis.
Mettler is known for films such as "Gamling, Gods and LSD", with which he won the prize for best documentary film at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2003, and "Petropolis", which won the Prix de jeune public category at the Visions du Réel International Film Festival in Nyon in 2009.
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