Skip to main content
Last Flight Home film image, director Ondi Timoner

Last Flight Home

This event has passed

Canadian Premiere

Prolific documentary filmmaker Ondi Timoner has shared her work with VIFF audiences several times in the past, but she’s never made a more personal film than this one. In January 2021, her father Eli told his family it was time. He was ready to die. Either immediately, or as soon as the law allowed. Last Flight Home is a vérité record of his last few weeks on earth.

While Timoner’s film is a valuable account of the process of medically-assisted death—at least as it plays out in California—the film has much more to offer than that. A high flyer, Eli founded Air Florida in the 1970s. It became the fastest growing airline in the world. Then in 1982—in his 50s—he suffered a stroke and was paralyzed for the last 40 years of his life. This deeply moving and cathartic film is a testament to different measures of success and fulfillment. As the extended family say their goodbyes, we see how the love Eli bestowed validates a life well-spent.

 

Media Partner

The Tyee logo

Director
Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

2022

Language

English

Film Contact
Links
18+
106 min
Documentary Women Directors

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On

Dir. Dean Fleischer-Camp
121 min

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a heartwarming film for all ages. Marcel, a tiny shell, lives with his grandmother Connie in a human house. When a filmmaker discovers Marcel, they team up to search for his long-lost relatives. Rated: G

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Wedding Banquet

Dir. Andrew Ahn
103 min

This joyful comedy cleverly updates Ang Lee's 1993 gay marriage comedy and transports the action to contemporary Seattle (actually, Vancouver).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Tornado

Dir. John Maclean
91 min

Scotland in the 1790s, travelling circus samurai Tornado (Kōki) runs afoul of a band of murderous brigands led by Tim Roth and his ambitious son, Jack Lowden. Mayhem ensues.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Two Women

Dir. Chloé Robichaud
100 min

In this light-hearted, emancipatory take on a classic sex farce, two neglected married women discover the joys of casual sex and get their plumbing fixed.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again
Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again film; overhead shot of churning water

Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again

Dir. Lyana Patrick
91 min

In the face of environmental destruction, two Nations fight to restore their river and a way of life.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Fairy Creek

Dir. Jen Muranetz
86 min

Considered the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, the Fairy Creek blockade led to more than 1200 arrests. What Jen Muranetz's film gives us is the story from the front line from the activists' point of view (often, from the treetops).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Producer

Ondi Timoner, David Turner

Screenwriter

Ondi Timoner

Cinematography

Ondi Timoner

Editor

Ondi Timoner

Original Music

Morgan Doctor

Director

Ondi Timoner headshot, Last Flight Home director

Ondi Timoner

Ondi Timoner is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker whose work focuses on impossible visionaries. She won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for Dig! (2004), about the collision of art and commerce, and for We Live In Public (2009), about the loss of privacy online. Her other work includes Join Us (2007), about mind control; Cool It (2010), about climate change; and Coming Clean (2020), about the opioid crisis. She is a member of the Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Filmography: We Live in Public (2009); Cool It (2010); Mapplethorpe (2018); Coming Clean (2020)