IndieWire — December 14, 2022
‘The Flying Sailor’ Finds the Beauty in History’s Most Devastating, Non-Nuclear Explosion

The 1917 Halifax Explosion — the world’s largest accidental, non-nuclear explosion — killed 1,782 people and injured an estimated 9,000 others, devastating the Richmond district of Nova Scotia’s capital in the process. Upon hearing the extraordinary account of a sailor who survived the disaster, flying 2 kilometers through the air before landing uphill naked and unharmed, the Oscar-nominated and Palme d’Or-winning duo Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis asked themselves, “What was the trip like?”

Blending 2D and 3D animation with live-action stock footage, “The Flying Sailor” telescopes time, expanding the few seconds the titular sailor spends tumbling across the sky into a seven-minute examination of the meaning of existence.

“Just the thought of being that guy in the sky is mind-blowing all on its own, so we loved it and then we put it away for a really, really long time,” Forbis told IndieWire, explaining how they were initially intrigued by the structure of the narrative. “You have this nice envelope of ‘He gets launched, and then he lands,’ and everything in between is completely open season.

“When we started out, we knew we really wanted to make the film,” she said. “But then we would say to each other, ‘Okay, what is it about, exactly?’ And we would shrug and say, ‘Oh, it’s about life.’ And that just sounds so pretentious.” (Read full story…)