National Film Board of Canada’s Anita Lee discusses the new doc project charting Chinese Jessea Lu’s attempt to free dive 100 metres in one breath. “It’s going to be a combination of compelling, thrilling, but at the same time deeply psychological,” she says. “Having a young, Asian female in this male dominated sport as a lead protagonist really brings another layer to the storytelling.”
With distinct echoes of Free Solo, Yuqi Kang’s 7 Beats Per Minute, budgeted at approximately €1.02 million with roughly €426,000 in place, will chronicle Jessea Lu’s mindbogglingly audacious attempt to extend the limits of human endurance by free diving 100 metres in one breath. It is also an extremely hazardous one, given that she blacked out underwater during the last free dive world-record attempt (93 metres) in 2018, and was rendered lifeless for four minutes.
But she was determined to get back in the water and summer 2022 will see the new attempt, as will we courtesy of Yuqi Kang’s feature doc pitched at MIA 2021 this week.
“I had, of course seen Yuqi’s first feature, A Little Wisdom, and was really interested in her as a director, and when she brought me the project as a proposal, I think just even on the page I saw so many wonderful elements, both in terms of character, the sport… that aspect, of course, of Free Solo and extreme sport, but also it is extremely character-driven,” says NFB’s Lee. I think the underwater aspect of free diving is going to lend itself to some gorgeous visuals. And Yuqi herself as a director is really very talented.”
In her MIA notes, Yuqi underlines her doc credentials. “As a filmmaker, I am always interested in the cinematic potential in documentary stories and continuously look for stories that can immerse the audience through cinematic language (visually and auditorily), while also telling important stories of our time,” she says. “Being an ethnic Mongol in China, then an Asian/Chinese in North America, the experience of adapting to different cultures, people, and places has made me realize that at the core, people, no matter their cultures, languages, and races, are fundamentally similar.”
Lee acknowledges the duty of care necessary, given the inherent danger within the 2022 world record attempt. “I think one of the key things for us was really understanding where Jessea is at now, psychologically,” she says. “The director and Jessea have really developed quite a close relationship. During COVID we couldn’t film and a lot of the competitions were paused and it gave us this longer development period where the two of them spent time together. Yuki started to just do some very informal filming, doing interviews and spending time with Jessea and, you know, and really trying to get a sense of where she is psychologically. And so our feeling right now is that Jessea herself…is in a much stronger place than she was then, and she herself has really moved forward in addressing her demons.”
“But at the same time we very much recognize that we are following Jessea in her career choice, and that is something that she would be pursuing regardless. You know, she’s a really, really fierce driven athlete,” Lee adds.
The climax of the production will of course be the dive in summer 2022, so Lee won’t be overly pressed on a precise delivery date for the film. “Because of COVID right now, things are still a little bit more uncertain…We’ve also got a few international travel aspects as well, including a trip to China.” That said, she is confident that delivery will probably be in early 2023.
