Returning to England from a bombing run in May 1945, flyer Peter Carter's plane is damaged and his parachute ripped to shreds. He has his crew bail out safely, but figures it is curtains for himself. He gets on the radio, and talks to June, a young American woman working for the USAAF, and they are quite moved by each other's voices. Then he jumps, preferring this to burning up with his plane. He wakes up in the surf. It was his time to die, but there was a mixup in heaven. They couldn't find him in all that fog. By the time his "Conductor" catches up with him 20 hours later, Peter and June have met and fallen in love. This changes everything, and since it happened through no fault of his own, Peter figures that heaven owes him a second chance. Heaven agrees to a trial to decide his fate.
Producing, writing, and directing, Powell and Pressburger created some of great classics of the British golden age including The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. In the words of Scorsese their films were "grand, poetic, wise, adventurous, headstrong, enraptured by beauty, deeply romantic, and completely uncompromising". This film will be an unparalleled exploration of their genius.
Scorsese will take the audience on a very personal journey as we hear how, from a young age he was captivated by their films, how they helped shape his own filmmaking and how a later friendship with Michael Powell left an indelible mark on his own life.
Brought to life with a treasure trove of rare archival material from the personal collections of Powell, Pressburger and Scorsese, the story will be told using diaries, audio recordings, home movies, personal snapshots and of course the films themselves.