Zu Gast: Peter Mettler | Premiere: While the Green Grass Grows – A Diary in Seven Parts

PREMIERE: In the presence of Peter Mettler, this is a unique opportunity to watch his seven-hour film in the cinema and lose yourself entirely in the flow of sound and image. This is his most personal film yet, at times tragic and comic, at times philosophical or poetic.

Filming for this seven-chapter ‘diary’ took over three years. In his unmistakable style, the filmmaker weaves together memories, his own family history and encounters with a wide variety of people into a meditative journey – a contemplation and reflection on death, origins, dreams and the fundamental human urge to tell stories. As in his earlier films, a trance-like pull emerges here too, to which one willingly surrenders and in which the personal blends with an exploratory approach that probes the possibilities of documentary film.

In 2023, Peter Mettler won the main prize at the Visions du Réel festival for Chapters 1 and 6, and in the same year we were able to screen Chapters 2 and 3 as an exclusive sneak preview and as a ‘work in progress’. Now Mettler returns to the Xenix to present his complete film diary as a cinema premiere. We will be screening this extraordinary work with intervals, followed by a Q&A with the director. We’ll round off the evening together with Peter Mettler at the Xenix bar.

• There will be a longer interval (60 mins) halfway through, during which you’ll have the chance to grab a bite to eat at the bar.