Producers: Gabriel Sedgwick, Nickolas Hasse

Our microcinema is going to the birds with Penny Lane’s rapturous documentary about everyone’s favorite escaped zoo owl Flaco – Wild Inside.

In February 2023, a Eurasian Eagle-Owl named Flaco escapes from the Central Park Zoo and sets off on a magical odyssey through the island of Manhattan. Flaco answers the call of the wild – and discovers he was wild inside all along. Wild Inside is an underdog story of resilience and self determination as Flaco the Owl beats the odds and accomplishes the impossible. Flaco busts out of his cage barely able to fly, but he adapts, he explores and eventually – it seems – he goes far beyond mere survival, becoming an internationally known icon of freedom, hooting from the highest water towers. He claims all of New York City as his wild kingdom.

The remarkable story of Flaco raises some questions: is it right to keep a bird in a cage? Is there any real distinction between “zoo animals” and “wild animals”? How can we be better to our nonhuman neighbors?

This one of a kind owl’s epic song is sung in Wild Inside by a chorus of besotted New Yorkers – young and old, bird-nerds and civilians, many of them immigrants themselves – all of them reaching for a glimpse of the wild, a glimmer of magic, or even just someone to believe in. Everywhere Flaco goes, he leaves that place and its people forever enchanted.