The Will to Fly
2016 film by Katie Bender & Leo Baker
The Will to Fly is a 2016 feature documentary film about the Australian Olympic freestyle skier gold medalist Lydia Lassila.
The film was produced by Katie Bender Wynn who co-directed with Leo Baker. The film made its Australian premiere in Melbourne on International Women's Day (8 March), 2016 followed by a theatrical release.
Synopsis
The Will to Fly is the story of Olympic Champion Lydia Lassila who, as a young mum competed in one of the world's most dangerous sports, and dares to reach for a dream.
The film shows Lydia’s journey: from her first love, gymnastics, to her transition into an aerial skiing career.
After winning the gold medal at her third Olympic games in 2010, Lydia became a mother. She then returned to aerial skiing with the intent of becoming the first woman to perform the sport's most complex acrobatic manoeuvre; one that had only ever been achieved by male aerialists before her.
The film chronicles Lydia’s lifelong pursuit to reach personal fulfilment by achieving her true potential, on the world stage at the Sochi Olympics in 2014.
Impact
In October 2015, before the release of The Will To Fly, the film was used as a catalyst in convincing NSW (Australian) parliament to invest in a $10 million Olympic training facility so that the Australian Winter Olympic team could train on home soil.
"It has been 10 years in the making, but Australia’s Winter Olympic leaders finally have the green light to build a water ramp facility that will underpin future international success".
“The Will to Fly” enters the record as 2016 film by Katie Bender & Leo Baker. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Will, film and Katie can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“The Will to Fly” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Will, film and Katie provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q24882976. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016, 2010, 2014 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Will to Fly” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.