Directed by Peter Mettler | Canada | 180 min
From an airport mega-church where a pastor performs flamboyant feats of faith-healing to poncho-clad crowds gathering to witness the implosion of a Vegas hotel; from recovering Swiss addicts reviewing their lives’ winding paths to spontaneous sacred encounters with strangers in India; Swiss-Canadian nonfiction auteur Peter Mettler’s most emblematic work is a rigorously associative travelogue, traversing diverse continents and landscapes, spiritual convictions and psychological states. Transcendence is the core theme, prepared improvisation the modus operandi. Whether flying solo or accompanied by a skeleton crew, Mettler’s capacity to be fully present, his gentle approach to interlocution, and his uncanny antenna for eccentricity draw in a stream of fascinating characters ready to articulate their longing for the infinitely varied sublime. A film of arrivals and departures, this Genie-winning, intuition-fuelled essay on peak experience is a peak in Mettler’s oeuvre and should be on any list of the greatest Canadian films ever made.
Written by José Teodoro
This special screening of Gambling, Gods and LSD will be hosted by José Teodoro, author of Nothing But Time: Conversations with Peter Mettler on Life and Cinema (Anvil Press), copies of which will be available for purchase and signing.
About José Teodoro
José Teodoro is a writer and director. His literary prose has appeared in Brick, Geist, The Fiddlehead, and subTerrain. His writing on film has appeared in Film Comment, Cinema Scope, and other publications. His performance works include Island, winner of the 2024 Lee Prize For New Canadian Plays, and Screen Door, which was adapted for audio by Applied Silence, José’s group with musician-composer Stephen Lyons, and is available via Offseason Records. joseteodoro.com.
About the Book
The product of eleven years of conversations with playwright and author José Teodoro, undertaken in various locations in Mettler’s two home countries of Canada and Switzerland, Nothing But Time explores this extraordinary artist’s life and practice, which brims with tales of uncanny coincidence, dynamic collaborations with fellow artists such as Atom Egoyan, Jennifer Baichwal, and Jim O’Rourke, and countless encounters with visionaries from the worlds of science and spirituality. In Mettler’s story, the yearning for knowledge is balanced with the surrender to boundless mystery, until the tenets that guide his art and life dissolve and cohere in an uncommon commitment to cultivating our collective sense of wonder.
In the spirit of respect, reciprocity and truth, we honour and acknowledge that this screening takes place on Moh’kinsstis and the traditional Treaty 7 territory, as well as the oral practices of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6. Finally, we acknowledge all Nations, Indigenous and non, who live, work and play, as well as help steward this land, honour and celebrate this territory.