"Fate Is the Hunter" is Ernest K. Gann's celebrated memoir of flying and the hand of fortune. The book is a nail-biting account of the early days of aviation. It's also a meditation on the mysteries and indifference of luck.

Gann was a commercial pilot from 1938 to 1952. He loved flying, but many times, it nearly cost him his life. Gann wonders: why did I survive when so many other pilots perished? What does it mean?

* Prix Marulic 2023 Finalist

Produced for CBC Ideas by: Neil Sandell
Editor: Greg Kelly
     Special thanks to Polly Gann Wrench and Conrad Gann for their co-operation and enthusiasm for this project.

Music: (under Creative Commons License, sourced in the Free Music Archive)

Daniel Birch: Drone & the Machine, Heartbeat Drone, Danger Drone, Weightlessness
Blue Dot Sessions: Emergent, Drone Lemon, Drone Birch, Velejo, The Records, Balti
Kai Engel: Blur
Filmy Ghost (Sabila Orbe): Labyrinth of Chasms
Meydan: Away
Podington Bear: Fluorescence, Wavy Glass
Uuriter: Post Drone
Dan Yan-Key: Ambient Sonata

Fate Is The Hunter - Director's Cut

*  Prix Marulic 2024 - 3rd prize, Short Forms

The Last Laugh is a love story. It is also a meditation on growing old; on what is fleeting in life and what lasts.

Burdened by personal troubles, the storyteller searches for something to distract him. He finds refuge by diving into an archive of the earliest sound recordings. Foxtrots, art song, Schubert. It doesn’t matter. It’s a way of losing himself. One night, he stumbles upon an oddity: novelty records about laughing. This leads him to reflect on the laughter in his own life, and what he fears the most.


The Last Laugh

Neil Sandell is a guy of a certain age. A guy who puts on cycling gear, who cringes a little when he passes the mirror dressed in spandex. He's a guy who, a while back, made a big change in his life. Uncluttered it. At least, that’s what he thought.

It Begins with Air

* Grand Prix Marulic, 2018 - best documentary

Tens of thousands of years ago, prehistoric humans ventured deep into caves and painted animals on the walls.  These ancient paintings are enigmatic and often artistically sophisticated.  The painted caves of Ice Age Europe are the most famous in the world.  They are the last traces of a forgotten culture.  The French archaeologist Jean Clottes has devoted his life to deciphering their meaning.  One question has driven his curiosity. Why did prehistoric humans make art?  
This documentary traces Clottes' search for answers.  It begins in his study in Foix, France, a place he calls "my cave."

---
This documentary appeared on Origin Stories podcast on Sept 28, 2017.  The podcast is a production of the Leakey Foundation.  Subsequently, I made a longer version for the CBC Radio program, Ideas.  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/old-masters-decoding-prehistoric-art-with-jean-clottes-1.4487646

What They Left Behind

* Winner - GRAND PRIX NOVA 2020 (Romania)
* 2nd Place - PRIX MARULIC 2019 (Croatia) 

This we much we know. The woman in the portrait is wearing pearls, leaning forward, smoking a cigarette.  But the rest is unknown – who she was, her relationship with an unknown artist. It is open to speculation. This absence of information invites those who see her to project their own stories onto her.  She is like a mirror.  Knocked off balance by the painting, the narrator ponders what lies behind his obsession with the woman in the portrait.  He revisits an upheaval in his life and a stark truth that he has been avoiding.

Writer/Narrator:  Neil Sandell
Producers: Neil Sandell 
         with Mira Burt-Wintonick, Cristal Duhaime,& Sarah Geis 
Sound Design: Mira Burt-Wintonick & Neil Sandell
Remix: Neil Sandell

Music: (Creative Commons license)
   Daniel Birch 		“Weightlessness”
   Jahzzar 		        “Montmartre”
   Scott Buckley  	        “Hymn”

The Painting - Director's Cut

* Prix Marulic - 3rd prize, Short Works, 2021
* Transom's "Small, Random & Meaningful" Collection 2023
* HearSay Audio Arts Festival - Finalist, 2019 

“The Collector” is a meditation on aging, isolation, and the comforts of the human voice.

When you make an audio documentary, you spend days listening to the same recorded voice. Listen on headphones and the distance between the voice and your ear is as a close as a whisper. You savour the subtleties. You revel in the intimacy. Then one day you realize you’ve come to depend on it. How did that happen?

Produced by Neil Sandell

Music performed by: André Moisan, clarinet; Louise-Andrée Baril, piano
From the album “Impressions de France” (ATMA Classique)
Used with generous permission of ATMA Classique

Nsandell

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