While The Green Grass Grows

A film that teaches us mindfulness. In his audiovisual diary, award-winning filmmaker Peter Mettler says farewell to his mother and father. But the film transcends his personal work of mourning. In a dialogue-oriented search through the cycle of life, he reflects on this world and the next, on existence and time. It is an eternal circuit and flow – like the continuous passing of clouds and rivers. Combining personal conversations, reflection, family history, memoir, homage, and love, Mettler takes the documentary form somewhere it hasn’t been before. At times tragic or comedic, philosophical or poetic, the diary is laced with psychedelic and experimental imagery and sound that enhance its trance-like feel. The result is a work of maturity and the director’s most intimate film to date that interrogates our universal human destiny with grace and generosity. Winner of Best Documentary at both Vision Du Reel and Dok-Leipzig.

Feature Competition section is supported by Macquarie University