“ this is KucKi your pilot speaKing ”

the true story of one woman’s triumph as she breaks through the ceiling at 10,000 feet

“ We flew so low, and so close to the mountains, that it felt like one could reach out

and touch them. ”

A FeAture Film bAsed on the

inspiring biogrAphicAl story oF

KucKi low,

south AFricA’s First FemAle commerciAl Airline pilot.

prologue

THE STORY OF KUCKI LOW against a backdrop of personal hardship, deep prejudice and entrenched gender inequality of that time, Kucki low made aviation history in 1973 when she became south africa’s first female commercial airline pilot.

LOCATIONS:With aviation and photography being central elements of the film, we will capture the dramatic landscape and wildness of africa as well as the established affluence and sophistication of europe. shooting would take place mostly in africa, namely in namibia (formerly south West africa) and south africa. some scenes take place in europe, namely austria and germany. AUDIENCE:this film will be geared to a worldwide, general audience particularly with women in mind.

Kucki’s real-life story captures the gender disadvantage that is often thrust upon women, and illustrates one of the many historical achievements of females in thoroughly male-dominated fields. it is a story about overcoming hardships and prevailing against all odds to ‘break through the ‘glass’ ceiling at 10,000ft’. this adventure film will inspire audiences the world over to defy convention and follow their own dreams or passions.

setting the scene

the dream begins with a sunburst.....

Kucki sits in the passenger seat of a tiny aircraft, high above the atlantic ocean that licks the thirsty shores of West africa. she is a photographer, taught by her german father who now lies dead and buried below her on the edge of africa’s great and foreboding Kalahari Desert.

“ WoulD you liKe Me to Fly you into the sunset? ”

the pilot asks

....and culminates with sparkling light.

photography is Kucki’s only education; it is the reason she left school at 15, sacrificing her studies for the struggling family business. she angles her father’s leica camera through the storm window and presses the shutter.

the sun is a bright orange globe sinking into the sea.

“ please Don’t taKe her aWay! ”

please Don’t taKe her aWay

Kucki lies tucked up in her nanny’s bed in austria, brown paper curlers twisting her baby-blonde hair. her father scoops her up and marches from nanny’s house onto the cobblestoned street outside. nanny runs after him, begging him to stop.

But father trudges on.

at the top of the street he opens a car door, drops Kucki onto the back seat and takes the wheel. Kucki untangles herself from the blankets and stares wildly out of the rear window. nanny is running after the car, arms outstretched, cheeks wet with tears, lips mouthing words that Kucki cannot hear. Kucki reaches out her hand to touch her, but the car moves too fast and now nanny is gone.

Nanny was following us, crying and shouting

the land empties itself of people as you approach the edge of the Kalahari Desert. you will see far below a train moving slowly along the heat-buckled railway tracks that slice through this place.

look closer and you will notice, peering from a window, a little girl, her cheeks flushed pink by the heat. this is Kucki, and she is as foreign to this landscape as the fat drops of rain that fall so rarely upon it.

she has been wrenched from her home in luxuriant, cultured austria, from the arms of her beloved nanny, and has been resettled in this barren country called south West africa.

peering FroM the WinDoW

sWalloWeD By aFrica

“ i thinK i have arriveD on the Moon ”

she says

land comes into focus slowly, a ghostly desert-scape emerging from the mist. the ship docks and an elegant woman emerges from within it. she is joined by a man and two small children, a boy and a girl. the woman touches the brim of her straw hat and casts a desolate gaze across the industrial port and the sand dunes that ripple out beyond it.

she walks down the gangplank and steps tentatively, off it.

her high heels sink deep into hot African sand. her heart drops into the abyss. she knows in that moment that she has been swallowed forever by this godforsaken place.

“Maybe my grandmother instinctively picked up on my sadness, and wanted to make me feel that I belonged.”

When raindrops finally fall from a brooding sky, they sizzle and pop on the hot earth, releasing Africa’s pungent scent. if they fall too slowly they will evaporate even before they’ve hit the land. here on this cattle farm on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, Kucki meets her grandmother for the very first time.

“ i thinK i have arriveD on the Moon ”

she says

FinDing eMotional shelter

the statuesque women waits beneath the pepper tree with her staff - tall, striking herero women who wear bright dresses and carry their babies on their backs. today she will reunite with the son she last saw 23 years ago, and meet the grandchildren he has given her, an emotional reunion for both of them. Kucki will find in her Oma a companion, a replacement, perhaps, for her beloved nanny. As oma tends the chicken coop and vegetable garden and cools herself beside the outdoor fridge, she will sweep Kucki along with her, enveloping her in a cocoon of safety and warmth.

“The loneliness I felt at boarding school was all-consuming. My days were filled with such intense longing for Nanny that going to sleep felt like a relief.”

Kucki sleeps fitfully. the moon comes in through a gap in the curtains, silvering the dormitory’s concrete floor. somewhere in the darkness a clock ticks. the other girls lie sound asleep in metal-framed beds, their chests rising and falling with the rhythm of their breath. Mother and father have gone far away. they are making a living in the north of the country: father sets up his tripod and takes portraits of the townspeople; mother taps melancholically at the cash register. oma sits all alone beneath the pepper tree on the edge of the desert.

DorMitory BluesBut Kucki’s loneliness has lifted, for nanny is here now. through the cottage-pane windows, Kucki can see the first daffodils of spring and the verdant pastures arcing up towards the alps. nanny bounces Kucki on her lap. she kisses her on the nose. Kucki laughs. her chest floods with a warm, familiar feeling: love.

now the sun is streaming through the gap in the curtains and striking Kucki’s face. she opens her eyes, disoriented. through the window she can see the boy’s dormitory on the far side of the playground, and she wonders if axel, her brother, cried himself to sleep last night, too. Kucki shuts her eyes tight against the blinding light, but the bell is ringing loud and spiteful in her ears.

What he does after hours is none of my business.

the security police are banging on the darkroom door. Ben amathila stands resolute behind it. Father wipes his fixer-stained hands on his apron, pulls himself up to full height and looks the sergeant straight in the eye.

he has seen his type before, in those men of the gestapo who would have dispatched him to a concentration camp had they discovered him smuggling his Jewish friends across the border. the sergeant is shouting now: you are harbouring a member of an illegal liberation movement, an organiser of illegal strikes, a troublemaker in this ordered land! you will fire him!

DarK rooM oF preJuDice

I will not, father says, calm and determined.

Kucki trembles in the corner. she is absorbing the lessons implicit in this exchange: be steadfast, be strongminded. never let anyone steal your integrity.

the cold atlantic still licks at the arid shores of West africa, but its a cruel tease, for this water is as salt-ridden as the land it borders. this is Walvis Bay, the place where Kuckis family first sighted africa and now they have returned.

Father has suffered a heart-attack. Kucki is by his side now: she is 15 years old and has been chosen to leave school to help with the struggling photography business, as axel must finish his education. she sets up his tripods in the studio and with his guidance takes over. Mother sits in the darkroom, pulling rolls of film through the developer, dipping them into the fixer, hanging them up to dry.

there in the dark, Kucki draws close to Mother desperately trying to make up for the lost years. her Mother tells stories of her life, of her father the wealthy banker, of parties and theatre and endless games of tennis. europe comes to life for Kucki through her Mother’s memories.

little does Kucki know how close she is to losing this fragile relationship she has finally found with her in the dark room.

“i peeped in to Mother’s room, as i tiptoed closer, i realised something about the way she was lying there was terribly wrong.”

Kucki stood motionless at her bed sixteen years old, staring in disbelief that her mother had decided to end her own life. the african sand had consumed not only her, but her dreams and the zest for life she once had. at that moment Kucki’s desire was set and would grow to impact her life forever. the desire to live her life fully, to own her happiness, to follow her dreams and to never give up on them, no Matter What!

shiFting Focus“ My FaMily’s survival DepenDeD on My leaving

school. We haD no alternative. ”

the snow falls soft and lightly in the forest, building into great drifts so that the boughs of the pine trees droop. Kucki stands still and listens to the silence. she is just a teenager and so alone in the world. the stillness reminds her of the desert where her parents now both lie buried: vast, secretive, embracing.

she’s chosen to return to europe after her father’s fatal heart attack, to experience life and seek out some of her Mother’s memories. she is studying photography and working to fund herself at tatler magazine as a society photographer. there are the dances and the day trips and the friendships, the reunion with her brother axel and her darling nanny, who has left Kucki’s little bed unchanged from the day her father scooped her up and took her far away.

europe doesn’t feel like home. it doesn’t represent her past, nor contain within it her hopes for the future. soon, africa lures her back.

continental DriFt

“ it’s harD to iMagine With all the neW FrienDs anD

exciting social liFe i coulD still Feel so alone. ”

Kucki sits on the floor, aerial maps spread out all around her, a new flight path taking shape in her mind.

it’s not so long since Mike flew her into that sunset, then taught her to do the same. she has flown over africa’s vast and scorching plains, skimming herds of gemsbok, zebra and springbok. she has landed among the elephants of etosha pan and beside a deserted diamond mine on the cape coast, where she scooped crayfish from the water and cooked them on the beach.

she has fallen in love with life, with Mike, with flying.

Mike has asked Kucki to marry him. how tempting is this ideal of a secure and loving marriage, of making a family on this continent from which most of her own family has now gone! But Kucki remembers how her mother’s spirit was broken as she lived out her husband’s dreams. she cannot make the same mistake, for she has her own passion’s to pursue. it is a heartbreaking decision: “I cannot marry you, she replies. I must fly solo.”

FinDing passion in the Desert

“ here, BacK in the MiDDle oF the Desert, love anD FinDing My passion Was the

Furthest thing FroM My MinD. ”

Flying into the storM

“ My aircraFt Was still on its Wheels, reFlecting the late aFternoon light.

We haD WeathereD the storM. ”

it starts out as a puff of cumulus and grows into an angry black thunderhead. the plane is tossed about in the turbulence. Kucki is the lone, tiny woman piloting this plane, and she knows she cannot outrun the front. there is an airstrip in the distance, ragged with age. Kucki grips the controls, summons every ounce of strength her body possesses, and brings the besieged plane back down onto african soil.

it bounces across potholes, comes to rest; the skies open. Kucki works beneath the deluge, lashing her little plane to the runway pegs, scouring the airfield for rocks with which to pin them down, praying the aircraft won’t flip over in the wind. lightning shreds the sky. Wild with adrenalin, slick with rain, Kucki races along the dirt road that leads to a town sitting ghost-like in this empty landscape. not a soul stirs, except for the man who stands beneath a shelter on the far end of the street. she appears to him like a ghostly apparition; he has no idea where she has come from.

learning to Fail

“ i DeciDeD to BucKle DoWn anD get to WorK to pursue My passion. ”

Kucki stares at the paper in front of her. her stomach churns with sickness and despair. she has spent months preparing for this commercial pilot exam. But the pages are swimming before her eyes: the navigation and theory of Flight sections involve mathematical concepts she simply doesn’t understand.

her lack of formal education taunts her now: she had left school and spent her teenage years working beside her parents, getting to know and deeply love these two people from whom she had been separated for so much of her life. But in so doing, she had cut short her education, had stunted the very skills she would need in order to achieve her dream of becoming a pilot.

sitting at the examination table, she knows that she has failed.

the deflated figure that leaves the examination room is not the confident, seemingly well-prepared young woman who walked into it. she has learnt a lesson, and now she must choose: to believe those who have told her she has neither the education nor the aptitude to become a pilot, or to believe in herself and do everything in her power to prove them wrong.

the sKy is no longer only Blue

“ iF goD haD WanteD WoMen to Fly, he WoulD have MaDe the sKy pinK not Blue. ”

Where will the pilot sit? asks the woman as Kucki slides into the pilot’s seat. i am the pilot, Kucki replies. the bemusing question brings a flood of memories to south africa’s first female airline pilot as she readies herself for takeoff. she recalls the fierce determination it took to pass her commercial pilot exam, the three-month survey undertaken by the airline to determine whether passengers would indeed fly with a female pilot, and the airline’s final decision to take a chance and employ her.

“I would never fly with a woman - a women’s job is in the kitchen.”

Kucki shifts her tiny, feminine frame about on a cushion, placed there to elevate her so that she can see above the instrument panel and better access the controls. she is petite, she is female but the voice coming through the radio is large and confident. she calls for clearance – Alfa Romeo Lima ready for take-off – before lifting off into a stormy sky. she keeps an eye always on the guidance system – in her plane, and in life – knowing as she climbs through those clouds that she will eventually break through into a brilliant clear sky.

in the end, Kucki descends towards an airport on Africa’s southern tip. It is dusk, and the lights of Cape Town twinkle and flutter

in the distance. she is all alone in the cockpit, accompanied only by the hum of the engine and the glow of instrument lights in the dark. After a

childhood scarred by upheaval and sorrow, in a country beset by prejudice and an era in which women cannot dream of a life beyond the kitchen, she has achieved the inconceivable: becoming South Africa’s first female commercial airline pilot.

A voice crackles through her headphones....

We’ve got you on raDar“ this is KucKi your pilot speaKing ”

“ hi KucKi ”the voice says, warm and familiar

“ We’ve got you on raDar ”

NANNY

a fleeting yet poignant presence in the story, nanny

is the woman Kucki first bonds with and who is left grief-stricken

when her young charge is taken to live on the other

side of the world.

Heartbroken.

GRANDMOTHER

an erstwhile member of the prussian gentry, Kucki’s

grandmother, oma, mirrors many of Kucki’s own qualities: her quiet demeanour masks

a fierce spirit of adventure and a doggedness that cannot be derailed by adversity.

Gentle protector.

MOTHER

half-Jewish, a bon vivant and one-time actress, Kucki’s mother,

lilly, thrives on the flair and glamour of post-war europe.

reluctantly following her husband to africa, she eventually descends into deep depression. she escapes

africa by ending her own life.

Vivacious, talented, complex.

KUCKI

lonely as a girl, unassuming yet self-assured as a young woman, Kucki possesses a thirst for life forged against a backdrop of

personal hardship and geographical dislocation. she becomes a

role model for young women when she’s appointed

south africa’s first ever female commercial airline pilot.

Determined, inspirational.

the characters

AxEL

a comforting presence in Kucki’s life, axel, her brother, appears to

have adapted to africa: he is bright and succeeds at every new

task he turns his hand to. yet Kucki will discover that he

nurses his own deep sorrows as he lies awake at night in the dormitory of his african

boarding school.

Optimistic despite the sadness.

BEN

Ben is a self-confident young namibian who works beside Kucki in her parent’s photography business. a union organiser, he chips away at

the remnants of german colonialism and the prejudiced rule of south

africa, of which south West africa is a mandate. as they work side-by-side,

the colleagues unwittingly develop parallel ambitions for a life of greater

consequence.

Quiet firebrand.

MIKE

Dark, rugged, handsome and possessed of an adventurousness

that matches Kucki’s own. Mike sparks an instant attraction

within her. he unlocks a passion when he teaches her

to fly. the couple’s love affair is forged against a backdrop

of desolate, beautiful landscapes and a shared love of flying.

First love.

FATHER

left behind in germany at the age of 15 when his family immigrates to

africa, Kucki’s father, carl, has endured his own share of heartache.

Desperate to reconnect with his family, he gathers his own wife and

children and follows them to a rudimentary farm on the edge

of the desert.

Urbane, handsome, stoic.

against a backdrop of personal hardship, deep prejudice and entrenched gender inequality, Kucki low made aviation

history in 1973 when she became south africa’s first commercial airline pilot.

This achievement is underscored by the fact that still in 2016 less than 6% of commercial airline pilots world-wide are female.

KuckiCo“this is Kucki your pilot speaking”

www.kuckico.com

Kucki Low

author and inspirational speaker

kucki@kuckico.com

t +1 604 630 7858

Kuckico inc is based out of vancouver, canada.

Eileen Hoeter

hoetergraphic productions chair of Women in Film and television international

eileen@kuckico.com

t +1 604 329 4300

Morag Burke

Director/owner of tria consultants event Branding for Major international events

morag@kuckico.com

t +1 604 341 6315