"I learned that Sofia was going to serve as a producer, and Durham, a longtime collaborator but more of a photographer professionally, was going to be directing this film for the first time. I also learned in that conversation that he had a dad who died of AIDS the very same year that my father died, in 1992, and [Durham] had lived in the Bay Area and came of age approximately the same time I did."
"We did a research trip together in San Francisco. My father's papers are at the San Francisco Public Library. We dug out those boxes and went through them together. We rented bikes and bicycled through Golden Gate Park, where I could point out to him important sites where I used to play or where the cover of my book was photographed. Over just that short visit, I felt a camaraderie and an ease."
Fairyland uses sun-drenched, postcard-like visuals to evoke 1970s–80s San Francisco and functions as a love letter to the city while examining parenting, grief, and coming of age. Director Andrew Durham and producer Sofia Coppola collaborated on the adaptation, and Durham brought personal Bay Area ties and a parallel family loss from 1992. The production team conducted archival research at the San Francisco Public Library and visited local sites such as Golden Gate Park to ground the film in place. The subject of the story spent time on set, and many crew members accepted personal or financial sacrifices due to deep investment in the project.
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