Becoming Animal is a new feature documentary co-directed by Emma Davie, (Reader and Programme director for PG Film at Edinburgh College of Art, Screen Academy Scotland) and Swiss Canadian director Peter Mettler. It premiered on 20th of March in Copenhagen at CPH: DOX festival where it was one of 12 films nominated for a Dox:Award 2018 “the festival’s bid for this year’s best international documentary film. …They are characterised by a strong, personal expression, by their cinematic qualities and expand the way that contemporary documentary relates to reality.”
Catalogue notes:
The film is a contemplative essay which explores our shifting relationship with the natural world through a trip to Wyoming’s Grand Teton Park with eco-philosopher David Abram. A subversive nature film in which we pique our senses to witness the so-called natural world—which in turn witnesses us. Moose clash antlers and a snail’s body becomes a vast landscape while the myriad sensory tools of cinema explore our complicity with this “more-than-human world.”
“A magnificent documentary about the natural origins of what we consider to be man-made and the connection between man and nature…Both filmmakers have the unique ability to elevate ideas, objects or concepts others may consider mundane into entities sacred and meaningful far beyond their physical presence. ” Modern Times Review
The film has also been nominated for Best Doc at Documenta Madrid, in Warsaw in Docs Against Gravity and also in Basel at Bildrausch Festival. It plays in all these festivals in the next few weeks before touring elsewhere.