WHat we do
Metamorph Films is a production company based out of Sacramento, California, specializing in documentaries and lyrical music videos. We have extensive experience working in every biome on the planet from the Arctic to the Antarctic, from tropical forests and rivers to ice fields. Metamorph's work has featured on BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, PBS, and NPR, as well as museums, art galleries and prestigious film festivals worldwide. We specialize in creative, thoughtful productions for streaming and theatrical release. Please contact us for more information.
Company Director: Kathy Kasic
IMDB page
kathy@metamorphfilms.com
THE ICE FILM TRILOGY
THE MEMORY OF DARKNESS, LIGHT AND ICE
If the ice sheet covering Greenland melted, global sea levels would rise 21 feet, profoundly impacting our planet. How, why, and when could this happen? A few years ago, scientists found lost sediment from a secret sub-ice Cold War base in the Arctic from the 1960s that holds clues to a time when Greenland Ice Sheet was gone. The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice is an hour-long documentary about the discovery of this sediment and the critical implications of the science to our future. The finding that the ice sheet melted in the past completely transforms our understanding of the stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Distribution in July 2025
THE LAKE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD
This sensory vérité documentary follows an international team of scientists who venture into the virtually unknown interior of Antarctica to explore a lake buried 3,600 feet beneath the ice, unlocking clues about our planet’s climatic history and the life in this extreme environment. As they struggle against the ferocity of the ice and wind, they consider how our relationship with nature – and with one another — will impact humanity’s future and the future of all life on our rapidly changing planet.
Best Documentary (Eastern Sierra Mountain FF, California Capital International Doc Film Festival)
Streaming on Curiosity Stream, iTunes, Amazon, Vudu and other platforms.
THE LIVING ICE OF GREENLAND
THE LIVING ICE OF GREENLAND is a feature-length documentary film about the startling discovery of the dark microbial forest melting the Greenland Ice Sheet far faster than any models predict, and the Arctic scientists and indigenous leaders witnessing it. The Greenland Ice Sheet is melting, threatening to raise sea levels and inundating coastal communities worldwide. The film is framed by the remote and perilous research high on the Greenland Ice Sheet, where rivers of melt water carve deep cracks in the ice and plunge into mile-deep holes dropping to the floor of the ice sheet. All the while the film raises the question of the value of science to our society.
DOCUMENTARIES
LOOSE HORSES (60 min)
Loose Horses is a feature length documentary about horses caught up in the sociopolitical effects of commercial trade. Loose Horses explores the purgatory of a horse auction, capturing the genuine grit of the livestock market subculture and the complicated human-equine connection in the American West. Rather than an activist film, Loose Horses takes a sensory-vérité style immersing the viewer and fostering critical dialogue.
Portland Art Museum
Journal for Video Ethnography
Ethnografilm Festival
Shane Lalani Center for the Arts
EARTH SHOT: REPAIRING OUR PLANET
FIVE PART SERIES (2021)
Kathy Kasic was a location director for four stories in the series, Earth Shot: Repairing Our Planet. The Earthshot Prize is intended to look forward to solutions for a brighter future on Planet Earth. Joined by Sir David Attenborough, Prince William investigates the five missions of the award and introduces the finalists for its first ever year.
The EarthShot Series also features Dani Alves, Shakira Mebarak, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Naoko Yamazaki and Christiana Figueres.
Streaming on Amazon Prime, Discovery+ and BBC
YELLOWSTONE (BBC)
BBC's natural history portrait of a year in Yellowstone, following the fortunes of America's wildlife icons as they face the challenges of one of the most extraordinary wildernesses on Earth. (2010) TRT: 3 x 1 hr mini-series
Credit: Assistant Producer of "Yellowstone" / Producer of "Yellowstone People"
Directed / Field-produced shoots for 3 years for all the of three one-hour programs: Winter, Summer, Autumn
Cinematography on the series (Summer / Autumn): osprey, underwater beaver sequence, trout spawning sequence
AWARDS:Nominated for Best Science and Natural History Film, Royal Television Society (RTS)
Best Specialist Factual Nomination, British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)
Winner Photography Factual, BAFTA, 2010
Cinematography Nomination, Emmy, 2009
Best Cinematography, International Wildlife Film Festival, 2009
Best Ecology, International Wildlife Film Festival, 2009
Best Wildlife Habitat Program, Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, 2009
Best Series, Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, 2009
Special Jury Award (Yellowstone Winter), Banff Mountain Film Festival, 2009
Winner, Best Environment, Festival de l’Oiseau, 2009
Broadcast on BBC2 to more than 6 million people, 2009
AGAINST THE CURRENT
AGAINST THE CURRENT (2006) underscores the importance of healthy rivers and streams in the arid West. Told through the wisdom of four people: two ranchers, a biologist and an environmental lawyer, this film tells the story of a rancher who, after 70 years, restored water to the stream that feeds his ranch.
Best of Festival: American Conservation Film Festival
Best of Festival: Great Falls Fly Fishing Festival
Best Conservation Film: Winston Rods Awards
THE GARDENER
Composer and pianist Julien Brocal shares an introspective and hopeful perspective on nature, art, and human connection. In collaboration with violinist Caroline Goulding, the two bring his philosophy to life through music. This film is a contemplative piece about the artistic process, filmed at Tippet Rise Art Center. (2018)
Selected Screenings:
Fine Arts Film Festival (Best Documentary)
Portland Art Museum
Rubicon Classics
Google Arts and Culture Collection
THE Driftwood Feeling
A portrait of Montana’s poet laureate and Crow Native American, Henry Real Bird.
The featured poem starts, “Driftwood Feelin’, How much longer do you want to be in the wind…?” Henry Real Bird’s resonating poetry is rooted in story, in culture, and in our shared humanity.
THE FISHMAN
Quirky sound recordist and Montana local, Mike Kasic, has an unmatched obsession for the underwater wilderness of the Yellowstone River. In this 10-minute short, Mike tells the tale of the river with the help of his wetsuit and fins. He swims the Yellowstone like a human-fish through swift river canyons and scenic mountain views, watching trout in fast currents filled with frothing water tornadoes, stopping only to body surf river waves. His message is simple: a river is more than its water; what lies beneath is a wilderness that is often overlooked, but critical for the Yellowstone ecosystem to thrive.
SCREENINGS/AWARDS:
Human-Wildlife Interaction Merit Award, International Wildlife Film Festival, 2010
Best Short Film Nomination, Wildscreen Wildlife Film Festival, 2010
Telluride Mountain Film Festival – Three screenings, one by popular demand, 2010
Wild and Scenic On Tour Selection, Wild & Scenic Film Festival, toured over 50 theaters, 2010-12
Festival Selection, Wild & Scenic Film Festival, 2011
Banff Mountain Film Festival Selection, two award nominations, 2009
Screened at over 50 festivals and broadcast on BBC to more than 6 million people
Read an article in the Billings Gazette about the film.
billingsgazette.com/entertainment/movies/article_3ba33f5b-934a-557e-bff9-ab89ad62a835.html
BETWEEN THE NOTES
A documentary that features a musical collaboration between internationally acclaimed pianist Julien Brocal and 13-time Grammy Award winning recording engineer Richard King. It reveals a behind-the-scenes glance into the recording studio, where the two artists work together to record and produce a solo piano album of works by Ravel and Mompou. Hand-held shots, candid footage, and close-ups reveal the personal dialogues within the studio, whether between instrument and microphone, engineer and pianist, or sound and silence. At once conversational, technical, and deeply musing, the film dives deep into the beauty of recorded music.
Director and Cinematographer: Kathy Kasic
Producer: Mickey Houlihan
Interviews: Julien Brocal, Richard King
Music performed by: Julien Brocal
Music: Federico Mompou, “Paisajes: No. 2, ‘El Lago’”; Maurice Ravel, “Miroirs: No. 4, ‘Alborada del Gracioso’”
Second Camera: Colleen Harvey
Editor: Kathy Kasic
Film Sound Recording: Mickey Houlihan
Music Mastering & Recording: Richard King
WILD CARIBBEAN’S DEADLY UNDERWORLD
A devastating natural disaster may be brewing beneath the calm blue Caribbean. A vast web of geologic faults could give way at any moment, unleashing catastrophic earthquakes, potent volcanic eruptions and tsunamis capable of inundating coastlines from Puerto Rico to New York. Wild Caribbean’s Deadly Underworld is an unprecedented attempt to take the pulse of these hidden threats. Renowned ocean explorer Robert Ballard will lead a team of scientists on a daring deep-sea expedition to the most active submarine faults and volcanoes along the perimeter of the Caribbean plate. A pair of remotely operated vehicles armed with a powerful suite of HD cameras and hi-tech tools will allow them to examine these potential hazards like never before. And they won’t just be looking for geological threats. These dangerous hot-spots also support some of the richest and most bizarre biological communities on our planet – alien-looking creatures that can survive in total darkness miles beneath the sea. From massive sharks and giant mussels to microscopic bacteria, Ballard and his team will be on the lookout for exotic extremophiles and ultimately, clues about the origins of life in the universe. (Cinematographer - Kathy Kasic)
LYRICAL FILMS
GLACINE
GLACINE, a poetic ice film, a requiem for the ice. (2025)
At the edge of the Arctic Circle lies an ice-covered land like no other. As a few months of summer warmth melt the snow on the edges of the icecap, the underlying ice is briefly revealed. On this ice, brilliant blue streams flow into seemingly never-ending chasms, crystals of ice glisten in the warmth of the sun, and rain falls gently where at one time only snow could touch. Climate change is melting this land from the outside-in. What remains of the archive of the ice when it melts? How long before the margin of this perennial ice gives way to the underlying land? Through the depths of the chasm, we can only watch gazing in awe from the edge of the slippery ice as the melt water tumbles down to the vast sea. Yet there is beauty in the ephemeral, and glacine is its essence.
AWARD NOMINEE - Sebastopol Film Festival
ENTER THE WIND
The Enter the Wind (2013) is an experimental film that takes the perspective of a dreaming Absáalooke poet, Montana’s Poet Laureate, Henry Real Bird. Enter the Wind won two awards at the 2014 University Film and Video Association conference and was nominated for Best Experimental Film at the Wimbledon International Short Film Festival. This film was also part of a Sensory Art Installation: https://kathykasic.com/installation
Through the Mirrors
“Through the Mirrors” (2018) is a poetic and musical evocation of the inevitability of time, inspired by W.H. Auden’s poem “As I Walked Out One Evening.” Snapshots from a woman’s life – from youth to old age – and from natural landscapes are framed and reflected in slowly spinning mirrors. At the center of it all, a solo pianist (Julien Brocal) plays music by Ravel and Mompou that, with the ebb and flow of its rubato, provides a musical narration to the woman’s story. Slow motion shots, superimposed images, and mirrored projections explore the raw beauty and unceasing flow of time and memory.
World Premiere Screening at the Sorbonne University, Paris
Best Cinematography Award
Open World Toronto Film Festival
Toronto Bronze Music Awar
World Fest Houston International Film Festival,
Finalist Best Experimental Short
Blow-Up Film Fest Chicago Portland Art Museum
Screening Crocker Art Museum Screening + Projection on museum wall
Filmmaker Day, Cinema Greenwich Village
London Experimental Film Festival
Syracuse International Film Festival
Birmingham Film Festival
The Stainless Stealer Steals the Universe
The Stainless Stealer Steals the Universe (2017) is a lyrical-performative film, based on Alexander Calder’s fascination with the universe, using space imagery from NASA projected on onto his sculpture, The Stainless Stealer. This short film is an exploration into the delicate balance and harmonies among music, sculpture, and the cosmos. Sculpture: Alexander Calder, The Stainless Stealer (1966).
Music composed and performed by Julien Brocal
Selected Public Showings:
Hirshhorn Museum
Fine Arts Film Festival
Portland Art Museum
Steinway Concert Hall
London Experimental Film Festival
Bozeman Documentary Series
Google Arts and Culture Tippet Rise Collection
A link to an interview about this piece: https://kathykasic.com/s/Julia-Louis-Dreyfest-Interviews-Kathy-Kasic-MINT-Film-Festival-WASTE-DIVISION-2789.pdf
Notturno
A short poetic film (2018) of the land where Tippet Rise Art Center rests. In memory of our sound designer, Dominic Maita. Franz Schubert: Notturno in E-flat Major, Op. 148 Performed by Sasha Kazovsky (violin), Amit Even-Tov (cello), Jeffrey Kahane (piano) Tippet Rise Art Center, the Domo, August 12, 2017
CIRCLES OF CALDER
This short film playfully celebrates a small mobile of Alexander Calder’s and a projected image of Calder’s lithograph behind and on the sculpture. The lithograph is animated, the circles spinning in time with the mobile spinning.
Portland Art Museum
Tippet Rise Art Center
Syzygy
Syzygy: Life in a Healthy Constellation was a live cinema performance of an experimental film (2014) about life in misalignment, with musicians on piano, sound plane and Kyma & edited live using Resolume Avenue VJ software. Note - the beginning of this film intentionally has no image.
REVERENCE
A tranquil contemplation of Mark di Suvero’s sculpture, Beethoven’s Quartet, on display at Tippet Rise Art Center (2017). Portland Art Museum, “An Evening with Kathy Kasic” Architecture and Design Film Festival Sculpture: Mark di Suvero, Beethoven’s Quartet (2003) Music: Ludwig van Beethoven, String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, op. 132 - Molto adagio; Andante Performed by the Dover Quartet Film Director/Cinematographer: Kathy Kasic Sound Recording: Mickey Houlihan, Monte Nickles, Jake Pickett, Joe Shepard Sound Mastering: Dominick Maita
SUN STREAMING
Sun Streaming (2016) is a poetic film about an otherworldly place where large, man-made sculptures reach up to the stars in an effort to find meaning in life and where the music captures light from our own star, sending it across the landscape, and back out to the stars. Within and without, the sun’s radiance illuminates all elements of Tippet Rise Art Center, from the smallest cloud of rosin dust to the sweeping landscape. World premiere at the Steinway Music Hall in NYC. Portland Art Museum Screening Architecture and Design Film Festival Screening Sculptures: Ensamble Studio: The Beartooth Portal (2015), The Inverted Portal (2016) Mark di Suvero: Beethoven’s Quartet (2003) Stephen Talasnik: Satellite No. 5: Pioneer (2016) Alexander Calder: Two Discs (1965) Music composed and performed by Eunice Kim Film Director/Cinematographer: Kathy Kasic Sound: Mickey Houlihan
