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
World Premiere: Visions du Réel 2025
Press:
"Visions du Réel: Choose Your Illusion" - Filmmaker Magazine
"A Brief History of Chasing Storms Director 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 short films have screened internationally at the Glasgow Short Film Festival, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Antimatter, EXiS, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Mimesis Documentary Festival, as well as the Hyde Park Arts Center, Gallery 400, and the Renaissance Society, among others.