Flechette (company)
Encyclopedia
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, and Dublin, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. The company has had a close association with filmmaker Garfield Kennedy
Garfield Kennedy
Garfield Kennedy is a documentary and fiction film-maker and producer based in Somerset, England. He was elected as a Liberal Democrat District Councillor for the Shepton West Ward of Mendip District Council in a in July 2010....
(who produced and directed the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences or NATAS was created in 1955 to advance the arts and sciences of television. Headquartered in New York, NATAS's membership is national and the organization has local chapters around the country....
Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
winning 9/11 documentary, NOVA
NOVA (TV series)
Nova is a popular science television series from the U.S. produced by WGBH Boston. It can be seen on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, and in more than 100 other countries...
: Why the Towers Fell
Collapse of the World Trade Center
The twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, as a result of al-Qaeda's September 11 attacks, in which terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners, flying one into the North Tower and another into the South Tower...
, for PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
broadcaster WGBH
WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...
Boston). Flechette has co-production links with Texas-based producers, Raygun Films Inc., and is developing theatrical films in Europe and North America.
Flechette has produced a series of fictional films including the BAFTA
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
-nominated short, Bye-Child (written and directed by Bernard MacLaverty
Bernard MacLaverty
Bernard MacLaverty is a writer of fiction. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 14 September 1942, and lived there until 1975 when he moved to Scotland with his wife, Madeline, and four children...
, and based on the poem of the same title by Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...
). Bye-Child and documentary, The Grandparents (directed by Ioana Joca), have been nominated for 3 BAFTA
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
Scotland Awards and MacLaverty won Best First Time Director prize. In 2005, Flechette produced a fictional film for children, Winning Streak, which featured television racing pundit, John McCririck
John McCririck
John McCririck is an English television horse racing pundit. He is notable not only for his racing opinions but also for his old-fashioned style of dress and mannerisms...
, playing as himself.
The company also has had a close association with various extreme balloon flights - principally involving Sir Richard Branson
Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....
and aeronautical designer and adventurer, Per Lindstrand
Per Lindstrand
Per Lindstrand is a Swedish aeronautical engineer, pilot, adventurer and entrepreneur. He is particularly known for his series of record-breaking trans-oceanic hot air balloon flights and, later, attempts to be the first to fly a Rozière balloon around the Earth - all with British entrepreneur,...
. In 1999, the company shot the world's first circumnavigation of the world by balloon when Swiss psychiatrist, Bertrand Piccard
Bertrand Piccard
Bertrand Piccard is a Swiss psychiatrist and balloonist.Born in Lausanne, Vaud canton, Bertrand Piccard, along with Brian Jones, was the first to complete a non-stop balloon flight around the globe...
, and English balloon pilot, Brian Jones
Brian Jones (aeronaut)
Brian Jones is an English balloonist.Brian Jones, along with Bertrand Piccard, co-piloted the first successful uninterrupted circumnavigation of the world on board the balloon Breitling Orbiter 3...
, flew their Breitling Orbiter 3 Rozière balloon
Rozière balloon
The Rozière balloon is a type of hybrid balloon that has separate chambers for a non-heated lifting gas as well as a heated lifting gas...
over the Mauritania
Mauritania
Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
n coast completing the flight in 19 days, 21 hours, and 55 minutes.