Jean Batten - The Garbo of the Skies

In the 1930s Jean Batten broke solo distance flying records and achieved international fame. Directed by her biographer, Ian Mackersey, Garbo of the Skies chronicles Batten's life through archive footage, interviews, narration from her unpublished memoirs and reconstructions of her epic flights. The documentary also reveals a lonely private world: a domineering mother, romantic tragedy, a fall into obscurity, and death in a Majorcan hotel (a mystery finally solved during the film's making). Garbo of the Skies screened on TVNZ, the Discovery Channel and the BBC.

A great woman ... but perhaps a sad human being in many ways.

– Beth Jacobs, widow of a Jamaican doctor who treated Batten

Key Cast & Crew

Stuart Devenie

Narrator

Caroline Mackersey

Research, Assistant Producer

Ian Mackersey

Writer, Director, Producer

David Madigan

Sound Recordist

Seaton Richards

Sound

Peter Novell

Sound