LAST FLIGHT HOME

Behind a white picket fence, on an unremarkable suburban street, we discover Eli Timoner, who founded Air Florida, the fastest growing airline in the world in the 1970's. During his final days, we discover his extraordinary life filled with incredible success and devastating setbacks, and most importantly, an innate goodness which won him the enduring love and support of his family. Through stunning verité footage recorded by his middle child, LAST FLIGHT HOME takes audiences on a heart-wrenching ride through Timoner’s life, illustrating a modern day success story built on the power of human connection.

Two-time winner of the Sundance Film Festival U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize (DIG!, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC) Ondi Timoner returns to the festival with an intensely intimate verité film about her family’s harrowing journey to find closure.  As they open up their lives to offer an enlightening view of a universal experience, they demonstrate the grace and connection that can emerge from embracing death. Through laughter and joy, they share a lasting legacy which demonstrates how we might live, even as we die.

“I never expected to turn the camera onto my family until my father decided to end his own life in late January 2021. I was just desperate to bottle my wonderful father up somehow - and this was the only way I knew how. He was my best friend, my greatest pal and champion, and the most inspiring person my family and I, and most of our community, had ever known - so when he decided to end his life, I was quite suddenly catapulted into documenting as unobtrusively as possible - setting it all up in a way that would cause the least disruption of anyone’s experience, including mine. I put cameras on sticks and a lavalier mic on Dad and anyone who came to visit him. Still, I didn’t know that I was making a documentary while I was shooting this film. I was fully immersed in caring for my father while also soaking up every last minute I could have with him.

My father, Eli Timoner, was innately good. His generous spirit, boundless optimism, and acute intelligence were infectious. He always instinctively said and did the right thing. He offered unconditional love to those close to him and treated everyone with dignity and respect. Even though he was paralyzed on the whole left side of his body since he was 53, he insisted on walking with a cane, despite having fallen many times. He didn’t want to be a burden to anyone, and he focused his energy and attention on everyone around him - always positive, never complaining.

I had never experienced the death of someone close to me and felt an urgency to make sure my father realized the impact he made on our lives. I also felt an intense fear, as if I was losing a part of myself and the ground beneath my feet - and I think documenting it was a way for me to feel my way through it as consciously as possible.

I realized about halfway through the mandated waiting period of 15 days proscribed by California’s End of Life Option law, that I had to make a short film to share some of the lessons we were all learning along the way, as well as to support Death with Dignity - which at the time of this writing is only a legal option for terminally-ill patients in nine states and one district in the United States (and faces a sunset clause here in California.)

 As we worked with the kind and brave hospice doctors and nurses surrounding my father over those 15 days, and I observed the comfort and peace it brought my father and family to be able to know the date he would be departing this earth, I felt increasingly moved to make at least a short film. As everyone gathered to gain any last wisdom and say goodbye, and the loving kindness my father exemplified was echoed by everyone who knew him, what was most important in life - and what true legacy looks like - became abundantly clear. Those days were some of the greatest of my life. I will treasure them forever.

 As I sat down to edit what was supposed to be a 5-10 minute memorial video a couple of weeks after his death for a Zoom service my sister, Rabbi Rachel Timoner, was officiating on March 21, 2021, the incredibly rich and beautiful footage poured over me. I found that my father was alive in the AVID! I could grieve him, often with laughter as he was extremely sharp-witted, and visit with him during long nights. Scenes and moments presented themselves almost effortlessly, and each could be seamlessly sculpted with a beginning, middle and end while remaining absolutely truthful. 

I found there to be a new level of intimacy and authenticity in the footage, because my father and family trusted me to record everything, and because we were truly so stunned as the days unfolded that we could do nothing more than move through them with as much love and awareness as possible. Forty years after my father's accidental stroke forged our family's bond by fire, my two siblings and I reunited - my older sister Rachel now a Rabbi, myself a filmmaker, and my brother David a star editor and provider - to help our wonderful parents. We all brought everything we could offer to this occasion:  My brother lined up the only local hospice that would assist with End of Life Option Act, my sister became my father’s Rabbi, and I cleared my schedule and stayed by Dad’s side, organizing goodbyes with all his friends and documenting everything so we could have a lasting memory of our father’s inimitable personality. What I ultimately captured was all of us walking on the moon in my parent’s living room - a family coming together and working as a team to face the vast unknown together and prepare our most precious family member, the trunk of our tree, for this final, mysterious Transition.

The film flowed right through me faster than anything I have ever made. Six months after my father’s death, I had completed a feature. I stayed up over many late nights crying, laughing and executing thousands of edits, but somehow I almost always instinctively knew what to do. Throughout my life as a filmmaker, I have had the fantastic feeling that some of the most special films are bigger than we are, and that they know what they want to become. I believe that LAST FLIGHT HOME is here of its own accord to offer a guide on how we might live - even as we suffer, even as we find ourselves in foreign and terrifying situations,  facing immeasurable loss - and even as we die. Just like childbirth, I have already forgotten the pain of bringing this film to life, because I feel so in awe of its existence.  I am so blessed that somehow my father’s brilliance was captured in a bottle - and that it is one from which we can all drink. I truly believe it is my father’s final gift to all of us.”

-Ondi Timoner, Director

Reception

About the Cast & Crew

CREW

Ondi Timoner - Director/Producer

Ondi Timoner is an internationally-acclaimed filmmaker whose work focuses on “impossible visionaries” (and LAST FLIGHT HOME is no different.) She has the rare distinction of winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance twice, for DIG! (2004) about the collision of art and commerce and WE LIVE IN PUBLIC (2009) about the loss of privacy online as predicted in a bunker in NY over the turn of the millenium. Both films were acquired by MoMA NY for its permanent collection. Since then, Ondi’s created award-winning films / series such as JOIN US about mind control, COOL IT about climate change, BRAND: A Second Coming about the transformation of Russell Brand, JUNGLETOWN about an intentional community in remote Panama, COMING CLEAN about the opioid crisis, and MAPPLETHORPE a film she also wrote and produced about Robert Mapplethorpe starring Matt Smith (recommend the Director’s Cut on Hulu). She’s currently directing a feature about the disruption and decentralization of finance.

David Turner - Producer

David Turner began his career as the founder of Film Canopy, a sustainability-themed content production company, where he managed the business, and wrote, directed, shot, and edited narrative and documentary content. His interests in environmental sustainability and storytelling led him to Panama in 2016, where he worked with Interloper films to support production of the VICELAND documentary series, JUNGLETOWN (2017). He transitioned full-time to Interloper Films in 2018, where as a producer he’s been responsible for the development and production of various documentary feature and series projects, including the recently-released COMING CLEAN (2020) - a film about America’s opioid crisis, and upcoming Interloper series/feature documentaries BETWEEN US,  REPLIKA and @WALLSTREETBETS.

Morgan Doctor - Composer 

Canadian-American composer and live drummer, Morgan Doctor, is a Juno and Dora-nominated artist. From her Junior High School band to Radio City Music Hall, Doctors career has been expansive and inspiring. Alongside releasing four critically-acclaimed albums she wrote, recorded and produced through Aporia Records, Morgan has performed as a drummer with such artists as Andy Kim (Arts and Crafts), Sandra Bernhard, Ron Sexsmith and Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene.)  She has performed and appeared on David Letterman, MTV CRIBS, MTV’s Total Request Live, CNN, and Craig Ferguson.

Though Morgan scored COMING CLEAN, acclaimed director Ondi Timoner’s  2020 festival-favorite about the opioid epidemic, which will be released March 8th 2022, the experience of collaborating with Timoner on LAST FLIGHT HOME was a truly unique and transformative. 

Morgan lived through the experiences documented in LAST FLIGHT HOME as Ondi’s partner. She was often the only one in the room who could pick up a camera and film the precious and private moments. She supported Ondi and her family as they traversed the challenging path of midwifing their patriarch through his final days and intentional death, and then sat down to score the film. The results are a deeply personal and emotional collaboration with Timoner in creating a musical landscape that envelops the viewer with the love that filled the room during those 15 days. The score highlights the ethereal nature of LAST FLIGHT HOME as the now meets the great beyond, and the surreality of the experience of facing death even as we embrace life.

Jenny Hochberg - Co-Producer

Co-Producer Jenny Hochberg started her career in Chicago working as a Documentary Content Producer for various clients covering live events and charitable foundations. She gained experience working for Documentary companies such as Ruthless Films and Jane Doe Films formally known as Chain Camera Pictures. She eventually transitioned to working for Interloper Films as an Associate Story Producer for working projects such as BETWEEN US, REPLIKA, and @WALLSTREETBETS. 

CAST 

Eli Timoner

Eli Timoner was born on December 12th 1928 in Borough Park, Brooklyn, to Benjamin Timoner and Rae Edelman, loving immigrant parents from Ukraine and Latvia. The family moved to leafy Woodmere, Long Island, when Eli was just three years old. At Woodmere High School Eli was a track star, running the mile in five minutes and forty seconds. He said that he “learned to run as fast as he could for as long as he could until he reached the finish line,” and that was how he embraced challenges throughout his life.

After graduating from the University of Miami in 1950, Eli married Joan Weidberg, and became President of Laura Lee Candy Company. Eli opened the factory every morning at 6 AM to turn on the boiler and begin the day with a chunk of bittersweet chocolate before welcoming his employees. Under Eli’s warm and smart leadership, Laura Lee Candies grew into a thriving business. It was during these years that Eli and Joan gave birth to two daughters, Pamela and Diane. Eli and Joan were distraught by the loss of their baby Diane at just three months old, and the strain eventually caused the end of their marriage. Their daughter Pam died of pancreatic cancer when she was 44 years old.  

In 1959, Eli acquired and reorganized Giffen Industries, and during the company’s meteoric rise, Eli met Elissa Doane, a receptionist, model, and fellow New York transplant. Lisa agreed to go on a date with Eli, but was not optimistic. She was sure that Eli, the CEO, would be an anti-union, conservative Republican. She was pleasantly surprised to find out that he was a pro-union Democrat, too. Their love affair began that night — Eli always claimed that it was the freckles on Lisa’s knees that sealed it. They married at noon on December 4, 1966, after Eli played two sets of tennis.

Eli founded Air Florida in 1972, the state’s first intra-state airline. “Fly A Little Kindness” and the “Little Airline that Could” were the company’s slogans. Known for low fares and friendly service, Air Florida became the fastest growing airline in the world with routes spanning Central America, the Caribbean, the Northeast and Europe from its hub at Miami International Airport. An egoless boss whose door was always open, Eli was known for helping out at the ticket counter or cleaning the cabin to turn around delayed aircraft — he always put teamwork first and led by example Air Florida employees formed deep, lifelong bonds and to this day the “Air Florida Family'' holds reunions which draw hundreds of families.

At age 53, Eli collapsed in the shower after his weekly massage in which his neck was cracked. A massive stroke permanently paralyzed the left side of his body, blinding the left of both eyes, and changing his life forever. His recovery was slow and painful, though his intelligence and wit remained intact. He regained the ability to walk haltingly with a cane, but would never drive a car, play tennis, or read a book again. Family and friends rallied around Eli, who remarkably maintained his positive attitude. In his remaining years, Eli dedicated himself to his family and various liberal and civic causes, including serving for 25 years on the Board of Directors of The Greater Miami Jewish Federation A devoted father, he reveled in his children’s successes and was proud of having sent all three to Yale.

In 2005, Eli and Lisa moved to Southern California to be near their children and grandchildren. Eli remained sharp, sweet, loving, generous, and funny to the end. In his last days, Eli was looking forward to “flying away” and seeing his loved ones who preceded him in death: His father and mother Ben and Rae, his brother Bert, his daughter Pam, and his niece Sharon. He promised that he will watch over and protect his family.

Eli Timoner died on March 3, at 92 years old. He is survived by his devoted wife and best friend of 54 years, Lisa Doane, his daughter Rachel, grandsons Benjamin and Eitan, his daughter Ondi, grandson Joaquim, son David (Kelly), grandson Eli Owen and granddaughter Genevieve Grace, and former daughter-in-law, Felicia Park-Rogers.

Lisa Timoner - Eli’s Wife 

A Bronx native, Lisa was a vibrant and passionate youth who made a living as a model in NYC. Lisa has been a dedicated Democrat from day one, volunteering for the presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson in 1956, JFK in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in his failed attempt to beat Richard Nixon in 1968. 

It wasn’t until Lisa moved to Miami that she met Eli Timoner in the elevator of their Biscayne Bay apartment building. It was love at first sight. Three months later, they were married. They raised three children in Miami. 

Lisa helped Eli launch Air Florida in 1972, enjoying its meteoric rise in the aviation world, while keeping the 3,000 Air Floridians as close as family.  Lisa’s favorite job of all time was working for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Project, for whom she interviewed Holocaust survivors across South Florida. She and her husband Eli, developed many personal friendships with her subjects. The strangest experience of Lisa’s working life came when she & Eli worked together in real estate after Eli’s stroke and the collapse of Air Florida when they sold a home to infamous O.J. Simpson, who they found waiting on the doorstep of a listing of theirs.

In 2005, Lisa and Eli relocated to the Los Angeles area to be near their three children and grandchildren.  Settling in Pasadena, Lisa began working as a receptionist for Coldwell Banker, San Marino, minutes from their home, making a lifetime of friendships there.  

Caring for Eli through the 40 years since his paralyzing stroke in 1982 was always Lisa’s primary devotion. Eli’s wonderful humor and his positive nature, his innate ability to always look eagerly forward and never backward, was key to the longevity of their marriage.  Fifty-five years of marriage was pure teamwork, from working crossword puzzles together, to their matching passions about national politics. Lisa and Eli were a perfect combination and a model for what a beautiful and sustaining love looks like to all who knew them. 

David Timoner - Eli’s Son

David Timoner grew up in Miami, Florida and began collaborating with his sister, Ondi, while they were both at Yale, making documentaries and experimental films at the local New Haven public access television station. After graduation, he co-founded Interloper Films with Ondi, making videos and short documentaries for the music industry, which earned them a Grammy nomination. Their interest in the music scene led to documenting local bands and eventually to making DIG!, which tells the story of two bands over seven years.  He co-produced, helped edit and is credited as a cinematographer on the 2004 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning film.

In 2008, David started his own post-production company, Gigiscope Media Inc and has worked on numerous television shows and films including 25 seasons of Dancing with the Stars, which earned him three Emmy nominations. He still collaborates with his sister on occasion, editing COOL IT in 2010 and joining Ondi on the edit team of BRAND: A SECOND COMING in 2015. He currently is a Supervising Editor at Fox Alternative Entertainment.

David was 8 years old when his father suffered a paralyzing stroke and from that day forward, everything shifted. Suddenly he found himself a caregiver to his once dynamic CEO dad and bore witness to his father's ego-bruising decline in wealth and status.  Although initially annoyed by sister Ondi's vast array of microphones, cameras, wires and tripods as the family grappled with death, he is gratified by the final work that is LAST FLIGHT HOME. That it even exists is a testament to Ondi's daring, heart-first approach as an artist and the tireless work of her dedicated team.

 David is eternally grateful to his family for their mindful and empowering approach to navigating the end of his dad's life. His sister Rachel's spiritual wisdom provided a framework by which to bid farewell and to mourn. His mother Lisa's daily devotion to her husband and her children held the family together for decades. The love and support of his wife Kelly and children EIi Owen and Gigi sustain him today.

He will never forget how they all gathered together in love and held his dad's hand - right to the edge. He lives in Altadena with his wife, two children and his dog.

Rachel Timoner - Eli's Daughter

Rachel Timoner grew up shaped by the example of her father's loving and ethical character, and by her mother's passion for justice. After college, she spent fourteen years working in non-profit organizations -- she founded two leadership programs and a talkline for LGBT youth; worked to rebuild a women's community center; and fought for racial and economic justice. Rachel began rabbinical school in her mid-30s and received rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2009. She served as a rabbi at Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles and is now senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn. She is honored to stand with families at the moments of greatest joy and deepest sorrow in their lives, and is grateful to be part of a flowering of creativity, learning, activism, caring, and spiritual life in her vibrant community.

She helped to launch RAC-NY and Reform California, two statewide efforts to bring Reform Jewish values to bear on core issues of our times, such as immigration, affordable housing, and racial profiling by police. In November 2016, Rabbi Timoner, in cooperation with then- City Councilmember Brad Lander, opened her sanctuary for two years so that thousands of Brooklyn neighbors could help to protect human rights and democracy. On any given Shabbat, you’ll find Rabbi Timoner speaking about our purpose as Jews and human beings; waking up to the spiritual aspect of our lives; the moral challenges of our times; and the ways we need each other.

Rachel was 11 years old when Eli had his terrible stroke and the whole family learned that life can change in an instant. A moment helping her dad in physical therapy -- in which a sudden shift in awareness created an opening and bond between them -- shaped the rest of her life. She is very grateful to her mother Lisa, sister Ondi, and brother David for caring for her dad day in and day out in ways that she could not. She is also deeply grateful that she was able to be with her dad and the whole family in the last days of his life and to support him and love him in the ways he needed as he was dying. Zichrono livracha. May his memory forever be a blessing.