Freediving Movies and Documentaries

[sharkvin]

List edited on 21st April 2006. I decided to list them all out again for everyones easy reading. Lots of goodies added to it thanks to all your contributions guys.. Need all your suggestions on something though, does anyone think I should have just edited on the original post?

Documentaries:
1) FreeDive - a 2005 made for TV documetary about Tanya Streeter training a novice diver to compete in freediving competitions

2) Ocean Men - Extreme Dive - A documentary featuring the rival freedivers o their time Pipin and Umberto.

3) Yasemin Dalkilic – World Deepest Woman - A documentary about Yasemin and her training schedules right up to her record breaking day.

4) Freediver's blues, A freediver story - (no info yet)

5) Cayman 2004 - PFI World Record Attempts

6) Cayman Down (2005) - PFI World Record Attempts

7) Caymam 2006: Sink Faze - PFI World Record Attempts (Due mid 2006)

8) Briseno Docu (Will find exact name later) 2005 - Followed Annabel Briseno on her world record attempts. Narrated by Tanya Streeter

9) Various Tanya Streeter Docu's

10) Sony FreeDiver Open Classic 2003

11) OceanMen TV Docu (as opposed to the IMAX version both are very different)

12) The Deep Breath - a documentary about Topi Lintukangas and his world record attempt in 2005

13) Mission to Blue – with Tom Sietas

14) Free Diving - about the Pacific Cup 2002 in Hawaii, shot by Miroslav Hrdý for Czech TV (starring Martin Stepanek and the Czech freediving team)



Movies:
1) Le Grandbleu aka The Big Blue - Movie about the rivalry of legendary freedivers Enzo and Jacques.

2) Into The Blue - Movie released in 2005 about scuba and freedivers recovering sunken treasure.

3) The Free Diver - a 2004 movie about freedivers achieving their goals

4) The Dive - Still in production and scheduled to release in 2008. It features the love story of Pipin and Audrey and is directed by Titanic's genius director James Cameron himself.

5) The Greater Meaning of Water - An Indie freediving movie on tomorrow(April 22 2006). hehe

6) The Amphibian Man by Vladimir Chebotaryov & Genadij Kazansky from 1961

7) Dolphins - a German film shot by Farhad Yawari (Iranian) in 1991



Competitions:
1) The Aida 2004 World Freediving championship recorded on DVD by producer Goh Iramoto

 

[sharkvin]

List edited on 21st April 2006. I decided to list them all out again for everyones easy reading. Lots of goodies added to it thanks for all your contributions guys.. Need all your opinions on something though, does anyone think I should have just edited on the original post?

Documentaries:
1) FreeDive - a 2005 made for TV documetary about Tanya Streeter training a novice diver to compete in freediving competitions

2) Ocean Men - Extreme Dive - A documentary featuring the rival freedivers o their time Pipin and Umberto.

3) Yasemin Dalkilic – World Deepest Woman - A documentary about Yasemin and her training schedules right up to her record breaking day.

4) Freediver's blues, A freediver story - (no info yet)

5) Cayman 2004 - PFI World Record Attempts

6) Cayman Down (2005) - PFI World Record Attempts

7) Caymam 2006: Sink Faze - PFI World Record Attempts (Due mid 2006)

8) Briseno Docu (Will find exact name later) 2005 - Followed Annabel Briseno on her world record attempts. Narrated by Tanya Streeter

9) Various Tanya Streeter Docu's

10) Sony FreeDiver Open Classic 2003

11) OceanMen TV Docu (as opposed to the IMAX version both are very different)

12) The Deep Breath - a documentary about Topi Lintukangas and his world record attempt in 2005

13) Mission to Blue – with Tom Sietas

14) Free Diving - about the Pacific Cup 2002 in Hawaii, shot by Miroslav Hrdý for Czech TV (starring Martin Stepanek and the Czech freediving team)



Movies:
1) Le Grandbleu aka The Big Blue - Movie about the rivalry of legendary freedivers Enzo and Jacques.

2) Into The Blue - Movie released in 2005 about scuba and freedivers recovering sunken treasure.

3) The Free Diver - a 2004 movie about freedivers achieving their goals

4) The Dive - Still in production and scheduled to release in 2008. It features the love story of Pipin and Audrey and is directed by Titanic's genius director James Cameron himself.

5) The Greater Meaning of Water - An Indie freediving movie on tomorrow(April 22 2006). hehe

6) The Amphibian Man by Vladimir Chebotaryov & Genadij Kazansky from 1961

7) Dolphins - a German film shot by Farhad Yawari (Iranian) in 1991



Competitions:
1) The Aida 2004 World Freediving championship recorded on DVD by producer Goh Iramoto

 

[sharkvin]

Woops. apologies for the dual postings.

 

[rickard]

Into the Blue

I think Into the Blue is a film which could possibly do a great deal for free diving. It is a film aimed at the younger generation who quite possibly have not been exposed to anything but SCUBA before. It may not be ultimately difinitive of free diving but it certainly doesn't do it any harm.

I say the more interest the better.

 

[trux]

Although it is not about freediving, there is a new movie for water fans in the works: Lady In The Water. Although in the trailer you cannot see a lot, I hope there will be many UW apnea scenes in the final movie.

 

[sickbugs]

into the blue was good.. mmnn..

 

[Boomstick]

And to hear Jessica Alba say " I can hold my breath forever...." Grrr!

I think I'm going to have to watch "into the blue" again tonight, just to fully appreciate jessica alba's lung(s) capacity, maybe even in slow motion:inlove

 

[nostres]

BTW, in the film description they write: "Actor Vladimir Korenev was doubled by the USSR underwater swimming champion Rem Stukalov". I tried to find more information about him, because I wonder what disciplines and what performances he did - it would be interesting to know what freediving was like at the end of 50's and beginning of 60's in the USSR. Unfortunately a brief googling did not reveal any results except of references to this film.

EDIT: I found another link with much longer description of the film:
http://twtd.bluemountains.net.au/Rick/am.htm

EDIT: there are some pictures from the film here:

How I love old threads

We have a thread about "Amphibian Man" goin now on Polish forum.
I must say I watched this film twice in two days, will watch again.
This is really big cinema, not only considering the age (1961), it IS some serious cinema. Film is simply beautiful, the story, cinematography and of course the actress

Very hard to rent or buy DVD ($35! used @ Amazon)
but You can watch it on YT in part 1-9, just click next part at the end of each episode.

You can also download it from Russian website, instructions on YouTube channel.

Enjoy this freediving masterpiece



[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOVLPuz2-4"]YouTube - The Amphibian Man (English subtitles). Part 1 of 9.[/ame]

 

[sross]

Hey Trux,

There's a Wikipedia entry on both the book & the film "Amphibian Man"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibian_Man_(film)

Also was surprised to see a rare poster for the movie selling for US$150 on eBay this really was a significant movie

 

[sross]

Just wanted to add the BBC documentaries with Tanya Streeter:

Shark Therapy

Top Wild Dives

Diving with Dolphins

Diving with Whales

Wild Tribe - Reef Gypsies

Also, the producers of the American Show Animal Planet re-edited some of the BBC material into a Show called "Freediver" that aired in the USA a few years ago.

 

[Blue Straggler]

Phoenix Blue. Bizarre British film about a musician hiding out from gangsters and the police on a lovely big yacht, with a freediving subplot thrown in for absolutely no reason at all. Tanya Streeter turns up in it. It is rubbish. It's from 2001. Our hero does a no limits dive at the end, looks like he gets to about to 20m.

 

[Blue Straggler]

And I think I've mentioned this before, years ago (had a short discussion with Trux about it, but my research didn't find anything new):
In Buster Keaton's "The Playhouse", made in 1921, and seen once by me on television about 20 years ago, so I might be getting a few minor details wrong, there is a very interesting scene and captioning. It's set in some sort of vaudeville/music-hall theatre, with a variety show of different entertainments going on. At one point, a large water tank is brought on and the announcer tells the audience "Now, these two women will try to break the record for staying underwater" - then two attractive young women (actually both played by Virginia Fox - the film was a clever split-screen affair) dive to the bottom of the tank and close some large hinged metal clasps over their waists to keep them down. The scene goes on, obviously plenty of cutaways to other things going on in the playhouse, and the captions count up "Two minutes...."; one girl bails out and releases herself and surfaces, we get "Four minutes", then the second girl can't get out, and Buster tries to rescue her first by trying to empty the tank using a teacup, before fetching a sledgehammer.

This tells us a few things - 1) that apnea record attempts - regardless of whether trickery was used or not - were used as entertainment at least as far back as 1921 and 2) the official records were probably around 4 minutes - this is not unrealistic. Buster Keaton was, to all intents and purposes, a keen and able freediver, I believe he used to do three-minute takes, clowning around in silly suits at the bottom of cold lakes etc.

I'm intending to buy a 6-disc set of Keaton films, which includes The Playhouse, so hopefully I can check to see if I'm making it all up!

Old circuses and freak shows always used to have an "aqua boy" or "fish girl", but I've never really been able to find out what their acts would consist of. This is all many many many years before the Weeki Wachee stuff

 

[Blue Straggler]

Ah it's been up on YouTube. I did get some details wrong - no hinged clasp (I must have got confused with the metallic belt) and only one girl....unless this is a different edit (the captioning is different - they definitely mention "the record for staying under water" in the one that I saw - I wouldn't forget that)

Poor quality, looks like it was filmed at a cinema showing.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAPQQOFvIqw&feature=related]YouTube - Rosa Rio - Buster Keaton's THE PLAYHOUSE Part 3[/ame]

 

[apneaboy]

Kenny that is a lot of random mutterings and even when you find proof you were wrong you still argue with yourself maybe there wasn't two virginia foxs' but you were arguing with yourself whilst watching it and you remember both view points rofl

Anyway more importantly do you have a copy of Phoenix Blue. I've wanted to see that since I saw it advertised in Freediver mag!
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[apneaboy]

I'm already braced for thinking it was a c@@@ film.
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[Blue Straggler]

Kenny that is a lot of random mutterings and even when you find proof you were wrong you still argue with yourself [/size]

You'll get used to it!

John of "Apneists UK: Central Division" has a copy of Phoenix Blue, I'm sure you can borrow it, it's not as if anyone would ever want to see it more than once

 

[Kars]

Well on the Phoenix Blue film, I've seen it twice, it's not that bad but it isn't of Grand Blue calibre either. They just wanted to make it appealing to wide audience and the compromises have an slightly negative effect. But Freediving has a role and though it's a bit blury in my mind how functional it is for the film, I think it is the 'hero's refuge and inspiration for his dreamy popmusic. It's also the way the reporter gets on his tail, through Howard's late Freediving magazine
Yes the play backing the actor does in the one of the last scenes is rather obvious, but it's not a high budget Holywood production so I'll forgive them. Still entertaining film with some nice plot twists.
Maybe you can find it on some torrent site.

 

[apneaboy]

I miss Freediver Magazine actually, shall we ask Stephan to get it going again. I think that would be cooooool.

Ill contact John and see if he isn't watching it every night and if he is ill try a download. Cheers guys
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[Blue Straggler]

I think I have John's copy actually Steve!

 

[Kars]

Wel, maybe Stephan, papa smurf, could hire an reporter on the spot at events such as the World Championships at the Bahama's. I mean someone with just a good phone cam, or better and an waterproof video able photo cam could do some real nice video's. Video is the way of future internet reporting, and Stephan can edit the video's into a nice cool flashy report into a nice DB format, with some adds. With Deeperblue expertise on Youtube I'm sure that would attract a lot of viewers, and give Freediving and DB a worthy level of reporting getting into the deeper questions why we are so passionate about the deeper blue. Just an idea off cause.