Ondi Timoner Is Ready to Take ‘Flight’ at Sundance With Her Most Personal Doc Yet (Exclusive Clip)

variety.com:

Addie Morfoot ContributorOndi Timoner has already won two Sundance grand jury prizes for her documentaries. But she is especially nervous about screening “Last Flight Home” at this year’s virtual festival.“It’s a scary moment for me because this film is so personal,” says Timoner of the documentary about her father and his final days. “It’s my family at their most vulnerable so, I feel responsible for putting everyone in this position.”Timoner and her family decided to be in Park City for the film’s Jan.

24 premiere despite the fact Sundance went virtual due to the concerns about surging COVID-19 cases due to the omicron variant.“We’re having a private watch party,” says Timoner, who won her first grand jury prize for “DIG!” in 2004 and her second for “We Live in Public” five years later; both were later acquired by the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent film collection. “I think the fact that we are all going to be on the couch together answering audiences’ questions will feel really good.” “Last Flight Home,” a sad yet joyous film about death and family, is Timoner’s eighth feature documentary and one that she happened upon when while writing a fictional film about her father, Eli, and the company he founded in 1972 called Air Florida.

She had spent six years writing that movie when his health worsened.Her father, then 92, was admitted to the hospital in January 2021 for breathing issues not related to COVID.

He had been paralyzed on the left side of his body by a stroke at age 53, and while he was able to walk unsteadily with a cane for the better part of 30 years, it became clear after his hospital stay last year that he would no longer be able to do that.