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
USA
2022
English
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Giant
This was the Yellowstone of its time: a big, sweeping modern Western built around an imposing ranch and family dynamics -- except Giant is much more subversive. James Dean strikes it rich as Jett Rink, much to the disgust of his former boss, Rock Hudson.
Familiar Touch
A loving portrait of an octogenarian transitioning into an assisted living facility, this award-winning first feature by choreographer Sarah Friedland has a simplicity and warmth that's exceptionally poignant.
Super Happy Forever
This beguiling film depicts a man’s return to the Japanese seaside town where he met his now-deceased wife five years earlier. He tries to relive the past, and in the film's final section -- a flashback to 2018 -- the audience is afforded that privilege.
A Streetcar Named Desire
"I don't want realism. I want magic!" declares Blanche du Bois, the tragic heroine who meets her nemesis in her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, in Tennessee Williams' great play. Brando's performance as Stanley is a turning point in American acting.
Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light
Drawing on her copious correspondence and the world's leading scholars, this is a definitive documentary on the life and work of "the mother of American Modernism."
Credits
Producer
Ondi Timoner, David Turner
Screenwriter
Ondi Timoner
Cinematography
Ondi Timoner
Editor
Ondi Timoner
Original Music
Morgan Doctor
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)