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We have all experienced a song, or two even, that have come to mark hugest moments in our lives. The power of music to fly through the air, capture our deepest feelings, and become the soundtrack to our lives became the subject of my first TV series, SOUND AFFECTS… but no composition has embedded in my soul as Prelude 2 by Max Richter. It helped me prepare for and experience the transition of my extraordinary father, Eli Timoner, who ended his life utilizing California’s right to medical-aid-dying. I would listen to it every day as I rode over to his home those last few weeks of his life, play it for him, and then it became the song that holds the audience through his passing in my film, LAST FLIGHT HOME. I highly recommend listening to Max Richter’s music if you are going through something larger than you can grasp, a loss, a massive change, and you need to touch the infinite.
Jan 16, 2025
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Probably not disturbing per se, so not sure how well I’m answering your question but this one is haunting for me. Watched this scene in the wake of my dad’s death, had never heard this song before and it ripped me open.
Apr 26, 2024
Well boy do I have the song for you:
Jan 20, 2025
Absolutely heartbreaking and devastating, but one of the best albums I’ve listened to in recent times
I love the mellow guitar vibes and the vocals are just perfect in every way to encapsulate the nostalgia and melancholy of the themes the album talks about
Just listen to it, trust me
3d ago
Top Recs from @ondi-timoner
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If you have a dog, walk them! If not, walk anyway! I have found my whole life that walking is the best way to feed my mind, body, and soul simultaneously… and to see and discover any new city. I travel a lot with my films, and sometimes I clock in 13 miles in a day… On any day at home, it’s a sacred time, as the sun sets and we walk our dogs. But if I can take care of phone calls, listen to podcasts, do Zooms and catch up with my partner and friends while moving my feet down the street, waving at neighbors and taking in the natural beauty that is waiting to be discovered around every corner - I will choose that any day. Wandering around a city is also our favorite way to experience any city in the world.
Jan 16, 2025
This is a book by Austrian psychologist, Viktor Frankl, about his observations of the human condition, recorded while surviving the Holocaust. He identified work, love and suffering as the three ways we can find meaning in life - while suffering is how we can reach our highest potential, because it tests us the most. He observed how vital hope was for survival, and how some people were profoundly graceful and generous in their suffering… like those who gave away their meager piece of bread, or even how a starving woman made the last days on this earth count by appreciating a single track against a blue sky she was able to see through a slit in the wood… It is really the best guide to living I have found.
A few years after reading it, I was approached to direct a documentary about the writers of Netflix’s Oscar-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front” as they adapt Man’s Search for Meaning into a screenplay. They are a power couple facing the biggest challenge of a lifetime: After 22 years of marriage and partnership, sports psychologist Simon Marshall, and 5X World Champion Triathlete, Lesley Paterson, get their dream job to adapt their favorite book Man’s Search for Meaning, but the same day they get the job, Simon receives a call from his doctor telling him that he has Stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer. The film we’ve been shooting follows their journey across the world, retracing Frankl’s life journey while pursuing cures for this deadly form of cancer. Our documentary is shaping up to be a modern Man’s Search of Meaning, because it is all about turning something devastating into a triumph by making it meaningful - and it has changed my life forever to take on the challenge of telling this essential story.
Jan 16, 2025
Staying at the Roxy in NY (formerly the Tribeca Grand) is akin to being on an elegant cruise in Manhattan. It’s my home away from home in the city. Everything is there: from live jazz in the massive atrium lobby with the glass elevator zipping up and down and the divine food and drinks (I recommend the lobster roll and a mescal cocktail) in recessed leather booths shaped like teacups, to the gorgeous red velvet theater below - which offers the best films on screen in Manhattan - curated by the brilliant Illyse Singer. After attending a killer film and fascinating Q&A, retreat to the Django, the speakeasy next door, which stays open til 4AM and is often where the hottest underground music acts play… What else could you ask for?
Jan 16, 2025