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An urgent and immersive audiovisual quest, BECOMING ANIMAL forges a path into the places where humans and other animals meet.
An inspired collaboration between filmmakers Emma Davie (The Oil Machine) and Peter Mettler (The End of Time) and radical writer and philosopher David Abram ("The Spell of the Sensuous"), BECOMING ANIMAL is an urgent and immersive audiovisual quest, forging a path into the places where humans and other animals meet, where we pry open our senses to witness the so-called natural world--which in turn witnesses us, prompting us to reflect on the very essence of what it means to inhabit our animal bodies.
Shot in and around Grand Teton National Park, with its dizzying diversity of wildlife, trails of curious humans in RV's and billion-year-old geology, the film is a geyser of provocative ideas and heightened sensations related to the sublime circuitry that connects us to our ever-shifting surroundings. A snail's body becomes an immense landscape as the soundscape immerses us in shivering leaves, rushing rivers and the weird spacey pitch of elk bugling at night. BECOMING ANIMAL embraces the sensory tools of cinema to trace how the written word and technology has affected how we see.
Driven by wonder, curiosity and a desire for balance between ecological and technological imperatives, BECOMING ANIMAL is an invitation to explore our relationship with this "more than human" world and recognize it for what it is: an exquisitely intricate system in which everything is alive and expressive, humans, animals and landscapes are inextricably interdependent, and there is no such thing as empty space.
79 minutes
SDH Captioned
Directed by Emma Davie, Peter Mettler
Produced by Cornelia Seitler, Rebecca Day, Brigitte Hofer, Son
Words and Presence: David Abram
Cinematography: Peter Mettler
Editing: Peter Mettler, Emma Davie
Music: AtomTM, Thomas Tallis, Gregorio Allegri, Frank Bretschneider a.o.
Sound Design: Jacques Kieffer, Peter Mettler
Re-recording Mixer: Jacques Kieffer
Picture Design: Patrick Lindenmaier
Produced by maximage and SDI Production Ltd in association with Creative Scotland, in co-production with Schewizer Radio und Fernsehen SRF
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"BECOMING ANIMAL will get you out to 'rewild your heart' and (re)connect with nature by opening your senses to what surrounds you and to the magnificent terrain in which you're immersed. My humble suggestion, and it's a simple ask, is to carefully watch and feel this film, share it with friends, and get outdoors as much as possible. Not only will this improve your own well-being but it also will help to protect our magnificent world from further and irreversible destruction. Because we are animals, BECOMING ANIMAL simply means we need to do what should come naturally and enjoy the feelings that arise and absorb us. If we remain alienated from nature, there will be a high price to pay for future generations."
"An artful and spiritual romp through the Grand Tetons that illustrates the sometimes strange ways that humans and wildlife coexist. It will stimulate discussions about the meaning of nature and wilderness in the Anthropocene as well as our drive to experience them."
Daniel T. Blumstein, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles
"As Native people know, a landscape is not just a repository of animals, trees, and mountains. It is a source of wisdom on how to live well. BECOMING ANIMAL serves as a persuasive meditation on how to unlock that wisdom for those ensnared in the modern world."
"You can taste the wildness of the living Earth in this marvelous film. This is at once a meditative invitation to deeper knowing and belonging, and an astute reflection on what it means to write, film, and record."
"A magnificent documentary about the natural origins of what we consider to be man-made and the connection between man and nature...A thought-provoking, peculiar exploration of nature."
Ellen Lande, Modern Times Review
"Genuinely eye opening...A fascinating, thought-provoking and pleasingly free-wheeling film."
Barry Didock, The Herald
"Something actually new and full of life came in the form of freewheeling audiovisual essay BECOMING ANIMAL...A big-screen viewing recommended."
Josh Slater-Williams, Sight and Sound
"In the moment where a human being contemplates BECOMING ANIMAL on the screen, the possibilities become infinite, like in a hall of mirrors."
Dominic Schmid, Film Explorer
"An unusual, thought-provoking film essay which upends many tropes of wildlife photography to create a rich landscape of ideas and images...Its message and approach are so wonderfully combined, so vital and sensitive, that the overall effect is quite magnificent."
Tom Duggins, CineVue
"A sensitive cinematic translation of Abram's thoughts on embodied sense perception and, in particular, that our seeminglysterile technologies model and mimic our bodies within nature...Mettler's sensitive cinematography reveals the lens's animal origins and animal seeing...Meditative, even transcendent, propelling the experience into the ecstatic.'"
Jill Glessing, POV Magazine
Steven Neish, HeyUGuys
Marcel Elsener, Saiten
CPH:DOX
Ezelle Alblas, The Upcoming
Imagine Science Film Festival