“The grass is always greener on the other side.” This well-known expression constitutes the inspiration for a plurality of movements. The cyclical movement of a torrent in Appenzell, Switzerland, whose waters swell when the snow begins to melt; the movement that drove Julie and Freddy, Peter Mettler's parents, to leave their native Switzerland for Ontario; or that of a free-form film. "How will you prepare if you haven’t planned anything?" exclaims Mara, a neighbour.
While the Green Grass Grows will be an extraordinary 12-hour long film, divided into seven parts, begun in 2019. In the form of an audiovisual diary, it takes us through the events of recent years, marked by the global pandemic but especially the deaths of the filmmaker's mother, then father, which provide the fuel for these two chapters screened together. A work of maturity, and probably the director’s most intimate film to date, which interrogates our universal human destiny with grace and generosity.
Text: Emmanuel Chicon
CREW:
Director: Peter Mettler
Producer: Cornelia Seitler, Peter Mettler, Brigitte Hofer
Cinematographer: Peter Mettler
Sound: Jordan Kawai, Peter Bräker
Production
maximage, Grimthorpe Film Inc.
Director
Peter Mettler
A restless cinematic adventurer, Peter Mettler’s singular body of work is characterised by hybridism, a sense of wonder, unusual forms of collaboration and a disregard for tidy generic classifications. Frequently visiting themes of transcendence, wanderlust and the delicate relationship between technology and the natural world, Mettler’s films combine travelogue, essay, interview, fiction and social critique. His major film works include: Gambling, Gods and LSD (2002), Picture of Light (1994), Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives of the Alberta Tar Sands (2009), The End of Time (2012) and Becoming Animal (2018). Honoured with awards and retrospectives worldwide, he is also known as a photographer, cinematographer and groundbreaking live audio/visual mixing performer, most recently presenting Yoshtoyoshto,a live cinema piece, with anthropologist and writer Jeremy Narby (The Cosmic Serpent) and Franz Treichler, leader of the band The Young Gods.Selected Filmography
Becoming Animal (2018), The End of Time (2012), Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives of the Alberta Tar Sands (2009), Gambling, Gods and LSD (2002), Picture of Light (1994) 
