About Our Film

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“Flying Lessons” follows two estranged sisters forced together by their mother’s sudden death: Beatrice, an autistic high schooler who wants to learn to fly, and Talia, a queer musician with no interest in teaching her. Starring and co-written by the autistic actress the story is based on, the film showcases a unique and underrepresented perspective on death and grief.

We are streaming on four platforms! You can rent Flying Lessons on Prime Video for $2.99 and on FlixFling for $4.99. You can also watch for free on Hoopla (with a participating library card). Starting October 29, we will also be available for free on Tubi! 

Direct links to the film are on our home page.

The final film was about 70% improvised and 30% scripted, but that’s not how it started! Sarah, our writer/director, wrote a traditional script. The script then became a manga, helping to emphasize the important emotions and reactions from the original script. This helped as Julia, the actress who plays Beatrice, improvised all of her lines (A welcome addition if you ask us). 

While filming, we referenced the manga to keep the story on track. It made sure that we hit all of the plot points and emotions we wanted to convey. It was important to us to have more than one entry point to the story while we were filming. We believe in representation on and off screen. Adjusting the script is just one of the many things we did to make sure everyone felt comfortable ensuring that we could make the best possible film.

We sure are! Check us out HERE. You can also find us on Letterboxd. 

Julia has been obsessed with dinosaurs for her entire life. When she was very young, she drew this baby dino ballerina, and her mother partnered with Paper Clouds to create a t-shirt. Paper clouds celebrates and supports artists of all ages with disabilities. They provided wardrobe for Beatrice. You can grab a shirt that Julia drew at this link: https://papercloudsapparel.com/artists/julia/

Shoot us an email! We made this film to share it with the world, and to encourage dialogue around autism in the arts. We are actively seeking collaborators for screening events. 

This story was inspired by the writer/director’s godsister, Julia, who is autistic. We wanted to make Julia, and everyone who was a part of this process, as comfortable as possible so we took a more creative approach to filmmaking. We made sure to be inclusive of everyone’s needs, ideas, and boundaries. 

One example of how we accommodated neurodiversity on set was that we turned the script into a manga for Julia to read. Julia LOVES anime and manga. Turning our script into one was an easy way to distill the scenes into a more engaging format. Including images of the house where we’d be filming and cartoon photos of Julia prepared her for filming and showed her that she was already part of the story.

While on set we used images from the manga for Julia’s call sheet. Again, making the process more accessible. These are two examples of thinking in a different way to be more accessible for everyone on set. 

Where do we begin?! 

The short answer is friends, favors, and 20k. 

The long answer is a group of incredibly talented and generous artists volunteered two weeks of their life to drive down to the middle of nowhere, stay in stranger’s houses, and film this little movie we all believed in. We filmed our script over the course of 10 days with patience, flexibility, meticulous planning, and clear communication. We’re so thankful of everyone who helped us along the way and we can’t wait for them to see our film!