Eileen Collins had the Right Stuff, and this doc knows it.

“Spacewoman” was the Closing Night feature at last year’s Boulder International Film Festival, and it closed it with plenty of oxygen. To put it bluntly, it was a documentary on Eileen Collins, who became the first woman to command and pilot a spacecraft. Before the screening began, I congratulated her on her success, and I also wished her and the director Hannah Berryman luck on the doc. And they both reach for the stars.

Documentaries like “Crumb” share their passion for not only the main subjects but also their families, and they speak about the influences they have on that specific person and how his/her family handles things. Ergo, this is also a real life family drama that leads to and supports a real life space movie.

In her early stages as a shy, down to Earth girl, she was the meek student, who didn’t stick up for other girls against sexist boys who hated smart girls. She also had a drunken father who ran the Collins Pub and her mother who was stressed out by the pathos in her life. Eileen believed that flying was a source of escapism from it all. She wanted to overcome the cynicism of the belief that women weren’t capable of flying or going into space. She didn’t even tell anyone she wanted to be an astronaut or pilot at the time, believing she would get the same answer. Eventually, through odd jobs, hard work, and perseverance, she earned her opportunity to do so, and she was willing to take a lot of risks.

“Spacewoman” also talks about how spacecrafts have suffered from accidents (like the Challenger disaster in 1986 or the Columbia disaster of 2003), which NASA was trying to examine how they can be prevented. It deals with the stress of the astronaut’s families, including Eileen’s daughter Bridget and her golfer turned Delta Airlines pilot husband Pat. They have to worry about Eileen going on her mission, and the film reminds us on Eileen’s persistence in making sure the space missions work out.

This was my choice of the best documentary I saw last year, because of Eileen’s voice and courage and how her family dealt with things at the time. It’s a movie that speaks about one of the things that women can do, and how they can tell men otherwise. There are some detours, but most of the journey knows how to tell her story. We don’t always need celebrities telling one person’s story in a documentary; we have Eileen to tell her own story. And through the archival footage of the space missions, it looks and feels exhilarating, because this is real.

In my BIFF Travels, I know how a film should close the festival, and “Spacewoman” is another entertaining way to close off the festival, and I’m glad I met the hero and director of it.

Important Distinction: this comes out in select theaters the same week as the Ryan Gosling space movie “Project Hail Mary.” I’m sure that film will make more money at the box office, but if you take my advice and find it at your local art house theater, you will enjoy it, too.

In Select Theaters This Friday