Before Flying Back to Earth

Before Flying Back to Earth is the first feature-length documentary film by the Lithuanian film director Arūnas Matelis. In a lyrical, yet unsentimental fashion, it shows the lives of children hospitalized with leukemia in Vilnius Pediatric Hospital - the same place where Matelis' daughter had battled and recovered from this disease some time before the start of production. The film is described as "a poetic, unsentimental Lithuanian documentary about the resilience of (the) human spirit". Its laconic style and its formal simplicity have been likened to haiku by some critics. Before Flying Back to the Earth is the most highly acclaimed recent Lithuanian film and is considered one of the best documentary films of 2005 in the world; it has been shown in numerous festivals. The film is in the Lithuanian language.