Wild Inside: “I get very philosophical when I talk about the film because it’s about really important things, but it’s mostly just really entertaining, fun & funny. A stranger‑in‑a‑strange land story"

vHopeful Conversations Podcast · Jul 22, 2026 · 40m

In this vHopeful Conversation, filmmaker and birder Penny Lane joins me to talk about Wild Inside, her HBO documentary about Flaco the Eurasian eagle‑owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo in New York City and became a worldwide symbol of freedom and urban wonder. Penny shares the origin story of that first surreal night outside Bergdorf Goodman, how she tried to imagine “what it is like to be an owl” by learning Flaco’s Umwelt and mirroring owl vision with camera movement and lenses, and why she deliberately walks a tightrope between anthropomorphism and genuine empathy. We dive into the…