VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Grant Rosenmeyer On His New Tribeca Film ‘The Secret Art of Human Flight’

Grant Rosenmeyer spoke about his new film The Secret Art of Human Flight, which premiered last week at the Tribeca Film Festival, in his new exclusive uInterview.

The Secret Art of Human Flight has numerous creative elements and themes that it tries to touch on.

Rosenmeyer described the film to uInterview founder Erik Meers as “a comedy-drama dealing with grief that also incorporates elements of fantasy and magical realism.”

The film focuses on Rosenmeyer’s character, Ben Grady, who is dealing with grief as he recently lost his spouse. Rosenmeyer explained how, “this particular guy ends up on the dark web where he comes across a self-help book written by a guru who calls himself Mealworm whose played by the Academy Award nominee Paul Raci, the amazing Paul Raci. And he begins to curate a bizarre series of steps help me unlock the power to fly like a bird or Superman or so he claims to.”

Grady does not know whether this guru is a con artist or if he actually knows what he’s doing, and the film follows this journey that Grady goes on. 

Rosenmeyer explained how important it was to get the right director in HP Mendoza for the film and to be able to express the themes he wanted. He specifically noted how Mendoza, “does a lot of experimental stuff and a lot of very out-there films so there’s always this question of what exactly is our grip on reality,” which was a perfect way to approach this film. 

Rosenmeyer believes that this story is accessible to a lot of people due to the COVID pandemic. 

“I felt like a lot of people could relate to the grief and the loss and the destabilization of the tragedy, you know we all sort of went through a collective tragedy as a world and it just felt like the kind of story everybody could relate to,” he said.

People who have gone through a similar loss as Grady also are able to connect to him and how he deals with his grief. Rosenmeyer explained how, “my own experiences with loss,” let him relate to Grady.

“Anybody who goes through loss can access this character, this kind of character.” 

One of the most important scenes in the film is a moment between Grady and his sister, who is played by Lucy DeVito. 

He described the scene in detail, “she confronts me about this process that I’m undertaking and she’s very concerned for me…. It may seem crazy, it may seem insane but like I may be a sham it may be psychotic but I need this.” 

He feels that this aspect is what a lot of people can relate to and they don’t need to necessarily be dealing with grief to understand what the character is experiencing.  

“A lot of people who sort of fall into these schemes feel, you know they’re lost themselves and are just looking for something, anything to serve as a life raft,” he said.

Rosenmeyer praised his co-star Raci, describing feeling nervous around the actor when he first started working with him, but they ended up forming a special bond. 

“He’s kind of an intimidating guy if you don’t know him but when you do get to know him he’s just like a big kid you know,” he said. “He’s like my brother now.”