'Flying Lessons' film navigates life, autism, and death

The themes of the indie film “Flying Lessons” are universal: death, grief, family and disability. But the way in which filmmaker Sarah Waldron tells the story is highly unique.

“Flying Lessons” follows two separated sisters — one an autistic high schooler and the other a queer musician — as they grow closer following their mother’s sudden death. Waldron chose to cast the leading character, Beatrice, using an actress who is autistic: Boston-area resident Julia Schanker, whose own life story inspired the film.

Schanker was adopted from China at five years old by Suzanne Buchko and her late husband. They were Waldron’s godparents. Julia Shanker’s adopted father — Buchko’s husband — died unexpectedly in 2010. At that time, Schanker was nine years old.

“Processing of the death together with them inspired me to make a film that looked at (the interaction) between grief and autism,” Waldron says. “Grief can also sometimes bring people closer together.”

But for Buchko the film goes beyond tackling the process of grieving — it explores the relationships people who don’t have autism can have with autistic people and vice-versa. She says every family with “lovely children” who are diagnosed with autism have shared experiences.

Scene from the film 'Flying Lessons' shows actress Julia Schanker, who was adopted from China and is autistic.

“This is how hard it is every single day for every single one of us, and enough folks don’t know that,” Buchko says.

The year-long process working with Schanker, who is now in her 20s, says Waldron, was fun and unique, and it made them closer as each other’s chosen family.

“It’s pretty good,” Julia Schanker says of acting in the film that is so close to the story of her own life. But, she adds, “I’m not doing it (again). It’s underrated for a reason for me.”

Waldron says scenes in this film are a stylistic combination of script and reality. Schanker and the other actors rehearsed with Waldron's written script, but during filming, they only set up the context for a specific scene and left the acting space to the actors.

“At the beginning of a scene, we just set up the context of the scene and identified how (Schanker’s) character was feeling in the moment. But then, everything (the character) said was completely of (Schanker’s) own creation,” Waldron says.

When Schanker was acting, Waldron says, the crew kept checking on her, because “I wanted it to be a positive experience for (Schanker). I didn’t want it to be triggering or traumatizing.”

Buchko, Julia Schanker's mom, says she wasn’t sure how her daughter would participate in the film at first.

“It was a crazy chance,” she says. “None of us knows whether she would do it or not.”

But in the end, says Julia’s mom, working together went pretty smoothly.

Waldron says her most memorable scene is the climax when Julia Schanker’s character, Beatrice, runs in the backyard with her sister.

AUTISTIC ARTIST: Julia Schanker, who stars in the film 'Flying Lessons,' poses for a photo with her adoptive mother, Suzanne Buchko, left, outside of Berklee College of Music in April, before Schanker was to perform the ukulele. Photo by Adam Smith

“I had no idea what was going to happen,” Waldron says. “We were like, just run around, do whatever you want and go freaking crazy…Everyone was participating and laughing. It was really fun.”

On the contrary, Suzanne Buchko says her favorite scene is simple but solemn, when the character Beatrice plays her cello. “It made me tear up,” she says.

Buchko says her daughter is artistic and musical. She made all the drawings shown in the film’s bedroom, and played the cello herself, thanks in part to attending an adaptive music program at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she also plays the ukulele. Waldron says Julia is in reality a better artist than in the film.

Living in Massachusetts the family has found a supportive and encouraging community. Julia Schanker attends adaptive rowing lessons in the summer and is currently practicing K-Pop dance at a studio in Boston.

“She is not someone who goes and hides,” she says, noting the contrast between the character, Beatrice in the film, and Julia, in real life.

Unlike in Hollywood movies, this film does not give an answer to the future, about what will happen to the characters after the mother in “Flying Lessons” dies.

“I wanted to try and make it feel as real as possible. I didn’t want to prescribe one option as the best one because it’s an extremely personal question,” Waldron says. “It’s a complicated and hard answer that isn't just going to be resolved. It’s an ever-evolving and lifelong situation.”

Director Sarah Waldron, courtesy photo.

Though the filming is over, Schanker’s life is still going on. After the film was released, Buchko says Schanker got an invitation to a fall weekend at a summer camp for adults with disabilities in Vermont. And Buchko says she and Schanker will travel to Vietnam this May for a program for young adults on the spectrum.

When Sampan asked Julia Schanker if she shares any dreams that her character Beatrice — who wants to fly — has, she said she wants to travel to Japan and that she’s an animation nerd.

But Waldron and Buchko suggested what is most limiting for people with autism is the society in which they live. Waldron says she hopes the workplace becomes truly neurodiverse. She wants to create spaces where everyone can participate, either neurotypical or neurodivergent.

“A lot (of) life is not set up for them. It is always how are they going to fit in,” Buchko says. “I wish I had been braver when Julia was younger.... I was like most parents of kids who are different, trying to figure out how to make our kids the same.”

But, she says, now her perspective has changed and this time on earth is what is most precious.

"Parents don’t live forever,” she says. “I think the film showed that.”

For more about the film, see https://flyinglessonsfilm.com/trailer