Some think of art as political, others think it is personal.

The late documentary filmmaker David Maysles said, “all art is autobiographical”.

While films like Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter, Salesman or Running Fence might provide little in the way of clues as to their personal dimensions for Maysles, it’s in his daughter’s film that one finds insight into the artist, his life, and his work –and the connections therein.

Wild Blue Yonder, Celia Maysles' first film, was shot over four years, and examines the emotional terrain of loss, regret, family, and relationships. 

We see Celia seeking out her uncle, the noted documentarian Albert Maysles, who worked closely with her late father. The start of the film documents their abundant joy at this long-awaited reunion. 

Little would anyone be able to guess at the myriad of problems that arise over the course of the film. 

It was a source of conflict Celia herself says she didn’t see coming.

"I thought the film would have this happy ending," she says with a hint of sadness, "I thought we’d have this great relationship, we'd spend time together. I had really high hopes. That was the hardest part of making the film - trying to accept that that would never happen."

The fact she chose to include both her and her father's therapy sessions provides a whole new layer of insight into the connection both father and daughter share.

"That’s why I included the therapy sessions," she says, "it was the hardest thing to deal with -moreso than dealing with my dad's death –was the fact I was being turned away by a relative. It was a frustration when everyone else was so cooperative, and I couldn't accept (Albert) wouldn't be. I couldn't understand why. It was the sticking point. I was really determined to change his mind –but I did not succeed."

She says the fact she shows her family experiencing such conflict is a point of connection with others -whether they have filmmaking fathers or not.

"As I was making it, people would hear bits and pieces about Al, and they would say,  'that’s just like my sister in law', or whatever," she notes, "Everybody has a story like this -every family. That also was part of the process, realizing I wasn't the only one, and making light of it."

Because her uncle owns the rights as well as footage itself, Celia was unable to use many pieces from her father’s work, including his last, and perhaps most personal work, Blue Yonder, a work that is directly about his own past and family.

Under the Fair Use Copyright Act however, a number of clips from Maysles’ works are shown in the work, and mixed in with these are interviews with the noted artists Jean-Claude and Christo (subjects of Maysles’ documentaries), Lois Irwin (from Grey Gardens) and various colleagues who had been involved with or known her father in some way, including film theorist Bob Sitton, editor Charlotte Zwerin, and another noted documentarian, D.A. Pennebaker, along with his son Frazer. 

"Getting in touch with people was very easy," Celia notes, "Everyone just dropped everything. Many filmmakers, who were the busiest, were like, 'can you come by this afternoon?' They loved him so much –that was one of the first things I knew.  And the second I started doing this, it happened so organically. People were so willing."

She says the biggest challenge was balancing the professional side of her father’s career with the more personal aspects she, as a daughter, had a natural interest in exploring.

"That was the biggest challenge," she says, "At times, it got too hard for me to know the right balance. It was trial and error. We spent a year in the editing room, working footage, trying it in different ways. It took time to get it right, because it was important to me that the personal stuff came across."

Making Wild Blue Yonder was "incredibly emotional", Celia says.

"It was really a growth period, something that I had kept inside my whole life. I never wanted to uncover anything, it was this little area that I kept locked, but once I decided, and really immersed myself in it, and accepted the fact it was going to be a long and difficult journey.... I had to do it to grow up a little bit. I had been carrying the weight of (the family fallout with) my uncle and the death of my dad around –I was sick of it. I didn't want to be so emotionally wrought. When I first started filming, the second they'd say “David”, I'd get upset. I was so fragile.”

She laughs at the memory.

“But by the end, the conversations were so funny. He was so alive!"

So while the world may remember David Maysles as a brilliant filmmaker and documentarian, Celia effectively uncovers the person behind the camera, using the sort of naturalistic, unforced, loose narrative structure that has become the Maysles’ family’s stock and trade.

The film is a meditative, meandering contemplation on family, identity, and self. 

Surprising as it may sounds, Celia says she doesn't consider herself an artist.

"I learned a lot about myself and a lot about pushing the boundaries of openness with something I was really focused on ... A lot of people are scared of personal filmmaking, because they're not that open themselves –it’s uncomfortable to see a film like this, but to me, these are the ones that are the most interesting."

Wild Blue Yonder screens at the Cumberland cinemas on Monday, April 21st at 7pm; it screens again at the Isabel Bader Theatre on Wednesday, April 23rd at 11am.

Wild Blue Yonder also has a Facebook page.

For more information, go to www.hotdocs.ca.