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
Gloria
Gena Rowlands was nominated for Best Actress for her portrait of gangster's moll Gloria Swenson: a tough, chain-smoking broad who finds herself running from her former friends in the mob to protect her next door neighbour's orphaned six-year-old kid.
The Encampments
When pro-Palestine protests took hold of Columbia last year, the filmmakers were there from the beginning. This documentary charts the mounting tensions between students and the administration, as the protests were picked up across North America.
Caught by the Tides
Over two decades, across China’s rapidly changing landscape, two lovers meet and part and meet again. In this magisterial film, Jia Zhangke refracts the 21st century through a reflexive, retrospective look at his era-defining filmography.
Sabbath Queen
The dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis, including the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Amichai Lau-Lavie is what you might call the black sheep of the family. His sexuality led him down a different path, but its destination is surprising...
Kryptic
Oozing psycho-sexual anxiety, Kourtney Roy's fascinating feminist horror movie feints toward creature-feature quirk, but morphs into something much stranger. Chloe Pirrie plays a double role, or maybe Everywoman, adrift in a world of men and monsters.