The Man Who Made Angels Fly

Context & Trivia

Michael Meschke, born in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) in 1931, emigrated to Sweden with his family in 1939 due to his Jewish heritage. He became one of the world's greatest puppet masters and founded the celebrated Marionetteatern in Stockholm in 1958, which he directed until 1999. The theater served as a cultural ambassador for Sweden for over 60 years, introducing the art of puppetry to modern Europe and bringing universal characters like Antigone, Don Quixote, Odysseus, and Faust back into the universal dimension. Meschke also established the Marionettmuseet (International Puppet Theatre Museum) in Stockholm in 1973, with its collection integrated into the national Swedish Theatre Museum in 2010. Beyond his work as a puppeteer, director, and writer, Meschke has taught at various institutions, including the Institut International de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mézières, France, and founded the puppetry department at the Turku School of Art and Communication in Finland. The film features Meschke manipulating his puppets, including Don Quixote, Penelope, Antigone, and Baptiste, the latter being a string puppet that first appeared in his production "Nocturne I" and for many years served as the introducer to children's audiences at Marionetteatern. Meschke has utilized various puppet techniques, including string puppets and rod puppets, and has drawn inspiration from Asian puppet theatre traditions, incorporating styles like Japanese Bunraku in his Antigone production and kuruma ningyō in Don Quixote. The film's director, Wiktoria Szymańska, is a writer and film director with a background as a painter and visual artist, born in Poland and raised in the UK. Her work is celebrated for its poetic visual language and deeply human narratives. "The Man Who Made Angels Fly" won the IDFA Industry Award and premiered at festivals such as Karlovy Vary and Hot Docs.