Director – John Dower – 2025 – UK, Austria, US – Cert. PG – 86m
****
The story of balloonist Bertrand Piccard’s three attempts to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 22nd
Bertrand Piccard’s house, as his astonished interviewer notes, is a museum, a personal collection of memorabilia from the history of aviation. It grew in a mere 66 years from the Wright Brothers’ pioneering efforts to the Apollo 11 moon landing. His family was in Florida at the time of the Apollo 7-12 launches which he witnessed. Five days before the moon landing, he vowed to become an explorer himself, but then when Armstrong walked on the moon Piccard felt everything had been done. He got depressed.
And then he saw a balloon and discovered that no-one had ever flown round the world in one.
In 1997, His first attempt, the Breitling Orbiter, ditched in the Mediterranean after six hours. Many others tried, including Richard Branson, who knew how to do publicity: in Morocco, Branson’s balloon blew away before it could be launched.
Enter British engineer Andy Elson. But the film switches back to Piccard, whose grandfather was a pioneering balloonist and whose father designed submarines and made a record-breaking dive to the Mariana Trench.… Read the rest