A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHASING STORMS presents a history of the tornado as both a destructive weather event and an American icon. Local monuments to past tornadoes intertwine with mythologies of settlement and displacement. An amateur storm chaser questions his own agency and fate. The CEO of a Wizard of Oz-themed storm shelter company describes a growing market in a world of increasing weather uncertainty. Unfolding episodically, questions of memory, inequality, colonization, climate change, and disaster capitalism arise as the film examines legacies of weather within the region colloquially known as “tornado alley.”
16mm and 4K video / 70 minutes
Screenings:
Visions du Réel - April 2025
DMZ Docs - September 2025
Tacoma Film Festival - October 2025
Tallgrass Film Festival - October 2025
Chicago International Film Festival - October 2025
Hot Springs Documentary Festival - October 2025
IDFA - November 2025
Press:
"25 New Faces of Independent Film" - Filmmaker Magazine
"Filmmaker Curtis Miller Takes on Tornadoes" - Chicago Sun-Times
"Visions du Réel: Choose Your Illusion" - Filmmaker Magazine
"On ‘Twisters’ Tornado Fever, Climate Change" - Variety
"A Brief History of Chasing Storms" Review - Film Explorer
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Curtis Miller is a filmmaker and artist based in Chicago, IL. His work often takes the American Midwest as both site and subject. His films have screened internationally at Visions du Réel, IDFA, DMZ Docs, Glasgow Short Film Festival, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Antimatter, EXiS, and the Chicago International Film Festival, as well as the Hyde Park Arts Center, Gallery 400, and the Renaissance Society, among others. In 2025, he was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film."
A Brief Histroy of Chasing Storms is Miller's first feature.