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.
Sept 30 & Oct 2: Q&A with director Yuqi Kang
Presented by
Media Partner
Community Partner
Jessea Lu
Canada
2024
In English and Mandarin with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Ina Fichman, Shirley Vercruysse, Anita Lee, Kate Baxter, Neerai Bhargava
Producer
Ina Fichman, Sherien Barsoum
Screenwriter
Yuqi Kang
Cinematography
Kalina Bertin, Alex Lampron
ANIM
Kara Blake
Editor
Dominique Champagne
Original Music
Frannie Holder, Mario Sévigny, Lauren Bélec
Yuqi Kang
Yuqi Kang is a Mongol Chinese Canadian filmmaker. She is driven by a passion for crafting psychological profiles set in extreme circumstances. Her directorial feature debut, A Little Wisdom (2017), premiered at Busan, SXSW, Karlovy Vary, and Hot Docs, where it won Best Canadian Feature. It was released by Amazon Prime worldwide. Yuqi was nominated for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and the Directors Guild of Canada’s Discovery Award and was awarded 40 Under 40 by DOC NYC.
Filmography: A Little Wisdom (2017)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Richest Woman in the World
Isabelle Huppert plays cosmetics CEO Marianne in this teasingly ambivalent satire inspired by the Bettancourt Affair, when L'Oreal heir Francoise Bettancourt scandalized France by frittering away her fortune on a notorious celebrity photographer.
The Python Hunt
Strange but true: the Florida Everglades are overrun with unwanted visitors. Not tourists, but invasive Burmese pythons decimating the local critters. The state's solution: an annual contest: $10 000 to whomever bags the most snakes in ten days.
Holy Days
After his mom passes, Brian (Elijah Tamati) is comforted by Sisters Agnes, Luke and Mary Clare (Judy Davis, Miriam Margolyes and Jacki Weaver, respectively). The quirky quartet hit the road to save their convent from being sold to a property developer.
Mārama
Set in North Yorkshire, 1859, this creepy gothic horror plays like The Piano in reverse: a young Maori woman takes up a position as a governess to a wealthy whaler's child, but finds colonial skeletons in his closets.