National treasure, Michael Snow is recognized as one of Canada's foremost artists, a leading experimental filmmaker and a pioneer in his "structural" approach to various disciplines of image and sound. Much of Snow's work investigates the specific materiality of a medium as he masterfully shifts from one discipline to another. As a modern day Renaissance man he may approach film with the mind of a painter or music with the mind of a sculptor always inviting viewers to experience his unique investigations into the very nature of perception. Painter, photographer, sculptor, filmmaker, musician, video, sound and installation artist Snow's conceptual explorations and processes playfully and intellectually transform structures and perspectives on many different levels.

Michael Snow revolutionized the possibilities of what cinema can be with his landmark films Wavelength and La Région Centrale. In these films, his investigations into pure film and sound create, for some, a transcendental experience. His rise to international prominence began with the seminal Walking Woman series, a body of work spanning seven years. The series presents, in various mediums, (painting, sculpture, photography, film) a single cut-out figure, continually transformed. In Toronto, he has five permanent public sculptures. Flight Stop at the Eaton Centre, The Audience at the Rogers Centre and Lightline at the St. Regis are synonymous with our Canadian heritage and the urban interior/exterior landscape of the city.

Fields of Snow takes the form of a journey with Michael Snow to various international retrospectives honoring his significant contributions to contemporary art while simultaneously tracing the history of his musical career as he connects with various musicians from his past and present. The film chronicles six decades of his lesser-known, but significant career as musician, composer, and pioneer in creative and free-improvisational music.

A view into his solo work, collaborations and compositions, the film reveals Michael Snow's innovative insights and artistry extending into the realms of sound. As the artist has said "Some of my most radical discoveries have been in music and sound".

"I make up the rules of a game and I play it. If I seem to be losing, I change the rules".
- Michael Snow

He has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1972) the Order of Canada (Officer, 1982; Companion, 2007), and the first Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2000) for cinema. Snow was made a Chevalier de l'ordre des arts et des lettres, France (1995) and in 2004 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne. (The only other artist to receive this award was Picasso)