2010 • 16' • French & English
Director(s): Herlé Jouon • Producer(s): Grand Angle Productions • Coproducer(s): France Télévision • Format(s): HD
On July 31 1944, the Lightning P-38 of Captain Saint Exupéry, which took off at 8h45 from the aerodrome of Bastia-Borgo, was heading for the south of France on a reconnaissance and photographic mission in preparation for the landings in Provence. In 1998 a fisherman from Marseilles pulled up a chain belonging to the lost aviator in his nets. The first object directly linked to the lost author. That was all it needed to reignite the mystery that so many devotees have been trying to resolve for 60 years. So Luc Varel decided to make a fresh study of certain wrecks of airplanes that he had discovered in the same area as the chain. Shortly after that he formally identified the plane, in the Calanques region near Marseilles. This was the start of a new investigation to try to understand why the plane of the most famous author and aviator of his time was in a place where no one had ever looked for it and what might have happened to it. An attack by enemy aircraft? Engine failure? Some even hint at suicide. In his office, in the heights of Marseille, he explains the climate of conflict in which the disappearance happened, while archive footage of aerial combat recalls the harsh realities.
