7pm *FREE*
Picture of Light
(Peter Mettler, Canada, 83 min., 35mm, 1994)
Picture of Light is a hallucinatory documentary tale which chronicles a filmmaker's journey to Canada 's arctic in search of the Northern Lights. While combining glimpses of the characters that live in this remote environment and the crew's both comic and absurd attempts to deal with extremes, the film reflects upon the paradoxes involved in trying to capture the natural wonder of the Aurora Borealis on celluloid. "The film is an existential meditation on snow and space and cold, undercut by an absurdist wit... Mettler goes to a world where cameras freeze and tries to film nothingness, unbroken patterns of land and sky. He achieves amazing results. In the context of Canadian cinema, where characters often live in uneasy tension with their environment, for once there is no contest: the weather wins, hands down.” - Brian D. Johnson, MACLEAN'S MAGAZINE
9pm
Manufactured Landscapes
(Jennifer Baichwal, Canada , 90 min., 35mm, 2006)
Milwaukee premiere!
Winner – Best Canadian Feature – Toronto Film Festival – 2006
Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes” – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams – Edward Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization's materials and debris. The film follows him through China , as he shoots the evidence and effects of that country's massive industrial revolution. With breathtaking sequences, the filmmakers also extend the narratives of Burtynsky's photographs, allowing us to meditate on our impact on the planet and witness both the epicenters of industrial endeavor and the dumping grounds of its waste. Manufactured Landscapes features the cinematography of acclaimed filmmaker Peter Mettler.
