The Making of “Wild Inside”

On February 2, 2023, Flaco — a male Eurasian eagle-owl, the largest owl species in the world — was discovered missing from his cage at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan.

What followed was an extraordinary story that captivated New Yorkers and people around the world. After spending his entire life in captivity, Flaco found a way to adapt to life in the wild, becoming an unlikely symbol of resilience and the enduring bond between urban wildlife and the people who share its habitat.

His magical odyssey through the island of Manhattan is the subject of Wild Inside, a new documentary from Sandbox Films, playing at select theaters nationwide.

Join the film’s director, Penny Lane, as she sits down with Jessica Harrop, executive director of Sandbox Films, for a conversation exploring the making of the film. They’ll discuss everything from the challenges and surprises that came with documenting such an extraordinary story in real time to the questions Flaco’s legacy continues to inspire about wildlife, cities and our relationship with the natural world.

Lane has been making award-winning, innovative documentaries for over a decade. This includes eight feature films, such as Wild Inside (2026), Listening to Kenny G (2021), Our Nixon (2013), NUTS! (2016) and Hail Satan? (2019). A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, Lane has received grants and awards from the Sundance Film Festival, Cinereach, Creative Capital, Chicken & Egg Pictures, the Tribeca Film Institute, the Wexner Center for the Arts and many others. She has been honored with mid-career retrospectives at the Museum of the Moving Image, San Francisco DocFest, Open City Documentary Festival and Cinema Moderne. She co-owns the Brooklyn-based production company Spinning Nancy and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And yes, Penny Lane is her real name.

Harrop is the executive director of Sandbox Films and an Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning documentary producer who has dedicated her career to inspiring passion about science through film. In her role at Sandbox Films, she oversees all project decisions and company strategy, and acts as an executive producer across Sandbox Films’ documentary slate — including Oscar-nominated Fire of Love; Sundance Special Jury Prize-winning All Light, Everywhere; Emmy-winning Fathom; and Fireball, a documentary directed by Werner Herzog. Harrop has produced content for a variety of outlets, including Netflix, Showtime, Discovery, National Geographic and PBS. As an establishing partner of Sandbox Films, Harrop’s passion for science storytelling shines through in each project she produces. She holds a degree in ecology and evolutionary biology and a certificate in theater from Princeton University, where she also co-taught an undergraduate film course on communicating climate change. Harrop is a member of both the PGA and the WGA and serves on the board of Reel Works Teen Filmmaking.