A Brief History of Chasing Storms

From The Wizard of Oz to the Twister movies, the tornado has become an iconic American symbol. In A Brief History of Chasing Storms, Chicago filmmaker Curtis Miller takes us on a road-trip through “tornado alley”—an ever-widening region that extends from Texas and Oklahoma across the Great Plains and up into Wisconsin and Minnesota. Along the way, he reflects on the multifaceted myths and histories around the famously destructive weather events, recounted by those who have been impacted as well as by opportunists looking to profit.

From a guide at the Twister Museum to the owner of a company that builds tornado shelters and a team of intrepid storm chasers, tornado-philes of all stripes are featured as the film traverses the U.S., capturing the landscape in carefully staged tableaux. Through an evocative series of vignettes, quirky yet swirling with meaning in a world increasingly reshaped by environmental catastrophe, this thoughtful cinematic essay maps out the ways in which history, inequality, climate, colonization, and capitalism are entwined with these natural disasters.