I SOAKED MY JUMPER WITH TEARS: LAST FLIGHT HOME REVIEWED

An unflinching documentary following the director's father in the last days of his life

If you’re planning on seeing The Last Flight Home at the cinema, don’t make any plans for afterwards as you’ll be completely done in. I soaked the top half of my jumper with the crying, and then needed to race home to wring it out. It’s an unflinching documentary from film-maker Ondi Timoner following her father in the last days of his life right up to the moment he dies. Old age is no place for sissies, Bette Davis once famously remarked, and neither is this film. But it is also about how to live, how to be a mensch, and so full of love and respect. Plus, the older you get, the less of a sissy you can be. (Or so I find.) 

LAST FLIGHT HOME: HOW TO FILM A GOOD DEATH

Ondi Timoner’s poignant, dignified, articulate documentary follows the assisted suicide of her father Eli, a businessman who moved into philanthropy and community service after suffering an incapacitating stroke.

‘LAST FLIGHT HOME’: DAD SHARES WISDOM AFTER CHOOSING MEDICALLY-ASSISTED SUICIDE

Ondi Timoner then documented her father’s last days. “Last Flight Home” is a remarkable veritè view of friends and family saying goodbye to their beloved husband, friend, father, and grandfather. Timoner is a two-time winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Documentary Grand Jury Prize – for her films “Dig!” and “We Live in Public.” 

DOC NYC SHORTLIST ANNOUNCEMENT BRINGS FOCUS TO WIDE-OPEN DOCUMENTARY AWARDS RACE

The release of DOC NYC’s influential shortlist of the year’s top nonfiction films. Making the list was Ondi Timoner’s deeply personal Last Flight Home, which chronicles her elderly father’s decision to end his life as permitted through California’s End of Life Option Act.

HOW I CAME TO FILM MY FATHER’S LAST FLIGHT HOME

Filmmaker Ondi Timoner (“DIG!”) captures how her father humanely took his own life in the new film “Last Flight Home.” She writes about what we can learn from his moving story.

In sharing this film, I find myself questioning what it is to be alive or dead. Was he more alive when he was sitting stuck in a chair, hidden from the world, struggling to the bathroom and back? Or is he really dead now that he lives in the hearts of all who see the film and helps them with their own deepest questions about the meaning of life and death? I have always hoped as an artist to make work that will help people, so watching the impact of this is a blessed journey to be on.

‘LAST FLIGHT HOME’ REVIEW: A POWERFUL CASE FOR THE RIGHT TO DIE

Filmmaker Ondi Timoner cuts home video footage of her father's euthanasia into an honest and moving argument that everyone should have the same right.

Timoner’s warm, open, and unexpectedly gentle “Last Flight Home” rescues a rare grace from the inherent performativity of saying goodbye. The director’s camera encourages her family to make themselves vulnerable and meet the moment head-on, while legal euthanasia offers them enough control over the timeline to let go of their precious Eli with love in both hands.

‘LAST FLIGHT HOME’ REVIEW: AN INTIMATE MEMORIAL

The director Ondi Timoner creates an account of her father’s final days.

In the moving, boundlessly humane documentary “Last Flight Home,” the director Ondi Timoner filmed the final days of her father’s life. Her father, Eli Timoner, chose to die at age 92 under California’s End of Life Option Act, which at the time required, among other steps, a 15-day waiting period after the patient’s first oral request to a doctor for aid-in-dying medication.

“Last Flight Home” is far more than simply a countdown of those days, but it is that, illuminatingly.

A FATHER CHOSE TO END HIS LIFE AT 92. HIS DAUGHTER HIT RECORD

To cope with the impending loss of the family patriarch, who decided on medically assisted suicide, Ondi Timoner did what she knows best: She made a movie.

The Telluride Film Festival described the documentary as “an emotionally devastating film, one in which every tear is a prism of joy.” Variety deemed it “a tribute, a grappling with mortality, an exercise in self-surveillance, a messy home movie, a brief account of aviation history and a lesson in letting go and grief.”

‘IT’S A RIGHT OVER OUR OWN BODIES:’ A REMARKABLE DOCUMENTARY ON MEDICALLY ASSISTED DEATH.

Filmmaker Ondi Timoner captures her family in a transitional phase, approaching death head-on in Last Flight Home, after her father requests the right to die.

A rare example of how to approach death collectively. How to do it legally, according to California’s End of Life Option Act. (There are 10 states that allow for medical aid in dying, in addition to Washington DC.) How to do it spiritually, as a family losing their patriarch, best friend, husband, father, grandfather. How to answer your loved one when, faced with terminal illness, they say: “I want it to end. Right away.”

‘LAST FLIGHT HOME,’ ‘AS FAR AS THEY CAN RUN’ TAKE TOP NONFICTION HONORS AT WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL 2022

Two MTV Documentary films vying for Academy Awards attention — Ondi Timoner’s “Last Flight Home” and Tanaz Eshaghian’s short “As Far as They Can Run” — garnered the top nonfiction honors at the 23rd annual Woodstock Film Festival.

“Last Flight Home,” about Timoner and her family’s last days with her father, won the best documentary prize.

“The greatest joy I have is sharing my work in person,” Timoner told Variety. “The reason I make films is to impact people and this film is doing that more than any other film I’ve made.”

‘THE MOST RIVETING AND RAW DOCUMENTARY I HAVE EVER SEEN’

In ‘Last Flight Home,’ Ondi Timoner chronicles her ailing father’s decision to end his own life.

“Last Flight Home” is the most riveting, piercing and raw documentary I have ever sat through. A family love story that forces the viewer to confront death in all its scorching dimensions, it is profoundly difficult to watch, yet it is impossible to turn away.

SAVANNAH FILM FEST: ‘DOCS TO WATCH’ PANEL, NEW DOC AWARD AND SPECIAL DOC SCREENINGS ANNOUNCED

The SCAD Savannah Film Festival, which takes place at the Savannah College of Art and Design each year shortly before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences votes to determine its Oscar shortlists, and which has become a premier showcase for documentary programming, in particular, has revealed the names of the 10 documentary features that it will highlight on this year’s edition of its celebrated Docs to Watch panel.

ONDI TIMONER TURNS THE LENS ON HER FAMILY IN first TRAILER FOR LAST FLIGHT HOME

A selection at Sundance Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, and London Film Festival, Ondi Timoner’s latest documentary Last Flight Home takes a personal look at her own family’s search for closure. Set for a release on October 7 from MTV Documentary Films, the first trailer has now arrived.

MTV DOCUMENTARY FILMS UNVEILS FULL SLATE AND TRAILER FOR ONDI TIMONER’S  'LAST FLIGHT HOME' (EXCLUSIVE)

MTV Documentary Films has boarded new projects to join a slate that includes Ondi Timoner’s Sundance title “Last Flight Home,” which will be screening at Telluride this week in a rare double festival act.

The “DIG!” director’s acclaimed film follows her family’s journey saying goodbye to their ailing father, who chooses to end his life through assisted suicide. Timoner’s recent movies include opioid crisis doc “Coming Clean” (2020) and the scripted feature “Mapplethorpe,” about the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (2018).

IDA ANNOUNCES 2022 SCREENING SERIES LINEUP - INDIEWIRE

The International Documentary Association (IDA) has announced the full program for its annual screening series. What will follow is a showcase of 43 feature-length documentary films that are eligible for consideration for the upcoming Academy Awards; 20 films will be screened both in-person and online, and 35 will be available for virtual viewing only.

LAST FLIGHT HOME

What an incredibly special film that we only see a few times in life that forces us to bear witness to the one thing that unites us all: death. Ondi Timoner opens up her personal life by taking us on a journey with her family as her father chooses to end his life in Last Flight Home.

‘LAST FLIGHT HOME’: SUNDANCE REVIEW

Anyone with an elderly parent faces tough choices on what to do for the best. Ondi Timoner’s deeply personal, immensely moving Last Flight Home strikes an instant chord as she documents her ailing father’s desire to end his life. A loving portrait of her father and the family who supports him takes a real emotional hold and seems guaranteed to provoke discussions on what constitutes a good death and who gets to decide.

MTV Documentary Films Buys ‘Last Flight Home’ Out of Sundance, Plans Awards Push (EXCLUSIVE)

MTV Documentary Films has acquired worldwide rights to Ondi Timoner’s “LAST FLIGHT HOME,” a moving and deeply personal portrait of family dealing with the last days of their patriarch. The documentary had several bidders and the sale was highly competitive.

Filmmaker Ondi Timoner Is Not Slowing Down Anytime Soon

When Timoner began making documentaries in college, it was a bit of a low moment for the genre. People had begun to associate documentary films with boring history lectures and public service announcements. But as she soon quickly discovered, documentaries have the capability of being so much more. In her own words, the real lives of individuals are often stranger and more interesting than anything a screenwriter could hope to imagine.

'LAST FLIGHT HOME' is Certified Fresh!

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.