7 Beats per Minute

Deep under the ocean, the human heart can slow to seven beats per minute. For Jessea Lu, a champion competitive freediver, that’s where she felt most at peace. That is, until she came face to face with death. While attempting a world record dive in the Bahamas in 2018, Jessea lost consciousness and stopped breathing for four minutes, forcing her to confront parts of her life and past she had long buried. Years later, Jessea returns, ready to dive again and become reborn.

An amateur freediver herself, filmmaker Yuqi Kang develops a friendship with Jessea over years of filming. Layering insights on the nature of freediving alongside sublime images of the ocean’s depths, Kang explores Jessea’s obsessive desire to submerge herself, documenting her own inability to be an impartial observer as the lines between friend and filmmaker become murky. Developing an active role in Jessea’s recovery process as they bond over unresolved emotional trauma, Kang captures the search for freedom and the struggle to find a place in the world to feel at home.

Mar 14: Q&A with director Yuqi Kang

An uncommonly intimate documentary about an extraordinary woman, 7 Beats Per Minute connects the dots between womb and wider world, following its subject as she comes to better understand the contours of her ability.

Kim Hughes, Original Cin

An absorbing and poetic dive into the psyche of someone who pushes herself farther.

Valerie Kalfrin, AWFJ.org