Telluride Film Fest presents "Fly Away Home" at The Palm, 11/28

23 Nov Telluride Film Fest presents "Fly Away Home" at The Palm, 11/28

[click “Play” to hear Susan’s conversation with Erika Gordon]

The Telluride Film Festival’s Sunday at The Palm series continues this weekend with Carroll Ballard’s (“The Black Stallion,” “Never Cry Wolf’) family classic “Fly Away Home” (1996).

“Fly Away Home” is based on the true story of William Lishman’s and Joseph Duff’s experiments on migrating birds. The pair provided real-life “imprinted” birds for the making of the film, as well as the aircraft, although release of “Fly Away Home” was delayed after a young girl, her father and flight instructor were killed at the controls of a similar small plane that crashed amid a highly publicized transcontinental flight attempt.

In “Fly Away Home,” 13-year-old Amy Alden (Anna Paquin) loses her mother in an automobile accident. When she wakes up in a hospital, she finds her father, Thomas, (Jeff Daniels), has returned to New Zealand to to bring her back to his home in Canada. Amy has not been in touch with her father since her parents separated 10 years earlier. Understandably, she remains upset about her mother’s death, but she is also in shock at the sudden shift in her surroundings. In an attempt to adjust, Amy begins exploring her new world and comes upon a clutch of eggs abandoned by a mother Canadian goose. When the eggs she has rescued hatch, Amy is the first thing the goslings see, and they “imprint” on their “mom.” As the geese grow up, however, it becomes clear they must migrate to safety. Amy and her father must find a way together.

“The children around me were almost hushed — the opposite of the restlessness that usually occurs at movies touted for kids. Ballard’s magic has nothing to do with illusion or prefab innocence. He makes you feel you’re seeing everything — air, light, water, trees — for the first time, and he makes it all register sensually…The paradox of the movie’s title is that home is wherever you find your wings,” wrote Salon.com.

Nine years after playing father and daughter, Daniels and Paquin filmed a sex scene together for “The Squid and The Whale.”  In an interview, Daniels allegedly said the way they both coped with the scene was “not to think about…you know, geese.”

“Fly Away Home” screens at 4 p.m. The screening is FREE to all.

To learn more about “Fly Away Home” and other Sunday at The Palm events, click the “play” button and listen to the Telluride Film Festival’s Erika Gordon’s short interview.