Before flying back to the Earth

After his daughter survived eight months of treatment for leukaemia, the Lithuanian filmmaker Arunas Matelis did not turn his back on the hospital. He filmed the kids in the leukaemia ward in Vilnius during their day-to-day routine, without becoming sentimental. For the parents, their worst nightmare has come true, but what do the children themselves think? A life among medicine, IVs and tubes does not prevent them from just carrying on. Their adaptability is incredible. Before Flying Back to the Earth is interlaced with black-and-white pictures showing the children in the middle of a smile, yawn or gesture, momentarily freezing time in this thorough documentary that does not deal with death, but with life.